What A Gentleman Wants (36 page)

He eased around a corner of the building. Light shone from cracks between the bricks, and through a grimy window he caught a glimpse of David.

Marcus pressed his eye to the glass. David was sitting in a chair opposite him, looking bored and haughty. Rourke was cleaning his fingernails with a wicked-looking little knife. A third man stood near the door, a pistol prominently displayed in his belt.

He left out a silent sigh of relief. Bentley hadn’t arrived yet; their deception was still working. He took a closer look around him, trying to find a place to hide while still allowing him to see and hear. with any luck at all, Hannah and Timms would arrive with a brigade of Runners before long, and he wouldn’t need to do anything but watch. Marcus wasn’t so foolish as to want to take on four armed men himself.

Around the back, he found his place. The water came almost to the foundation here, and even lapped at some moss-covered stone steps sloping into the river. But at the top of the slippery steps was a door, a door that was warped enough to allow a good view of the room within. Placing his feet carefully, he was able to get right up against
the
door and monitor everything that happened.

For a long time there was nothing to see or hear. Periodically Rourke would mutter something to his man, who would peer out the window and shake his head. David usually greeted these exchanges with acerbic comments, once even pointedly checking his pocket watch. Outside, Marcus silently wished Rourke’s greed would get the better of him; he’d appeared inclined to bargain earlier, but now he seemed content to wait

Wedged into the doorframe, he had time to think. What was Bentley’s plan? His cousin had wanted the duke; now he would think he had him. Bentley must know by now as well that Lily had failed to kidnap Molly, but perhaps
that
had only been a plot all along to lure him—or David—here. Bentley must want money, to pay Rourke if nothing else. Ransom? But surely Rourke would have simply demanded it when David and Hannah arrived, instead of letting his prisoner go. The question chased round and round in his mind, taunting him: what did Bentley want from him?

He was still considering possibilities when the faraway sound of a carriage approaching penetrated the fog. Marcus pricked up his ears expectandy, edging around the side of the house to see. Timms would know to approach quietly, though, so he waited, silent and hidden.

His fear was justified when the slim figure of his cousin came striding down the path. Bentley said something to the men outside the door, then all three went inside. That made five inside with David, and a sixth down the lane. Marcus let out his breath in disappointment and slid back to his vantage point on the shoreside.

He could see Bentley across the room, in the doorway. David, his back to Marcus, still sat in the chair. His cousin wore a small, pleased smile, and said noth-ing for a long moment, as though savoring it.

“Fashionably late, as usual,” said David coolly.

Bentley smiled, pulling off his gloves. “Perhaps I enjoy making you wait.”

David let out a weary sigh. “Do let me know when we’re to conduct business, won’t you? I’ve been cooling my heels an age already.”

The smile vanished from Bendey’s face. “On your feet,” he snapped. “Your manners, Exeter.”

David tilted back his head. “How remiss of me,” he said. But he got to his feet.

Slapping his gloves into his palm, Bentley smiled again, more forced this time. “I’ve looked forward to this conversation for a very long time.”

“You might have called on me at any time, and in far more comfortable quarters,” David shot back. Bentley’s face darkened, but his smile didn’t waver.

“Someday you shall call on
me
in more comfortable quarters,” he said. “Or, perhaps not.” Rourke let out a bark of a laugh, then tried to cover it with a cough. Bentley shot him a sharp frown, then smoothed his face again. “Imagine my surprise, dear cousin, to find you instead of your useless brother.”

“Imagination,” replied David, “was never your weakness.”

A muscle twitched in Bendey’s jaw. “No. You’ll discover just how much imagination I possess very soon.”

“At last,” drawled David. “Something will occur
soon
.”

Bentley’s chest filled. He removed his hat and shoved it at one of the men, smoothing one hand over his golden hair. Deliberately, he shed his greatcoat and handed it over as well. He was making David wait, Marcus realized; just what David had intended. “Well, there’s no real hurry,” said Bentley, confirming his suspicions. “In fact, now that the moment is at hand, I cannot decide exacdy what I shall do first.”

“Get the money,” rumbled Rourke.

“Silence,” snapped Bentley, “or you’ll not see a bloody farthing.”

“Tsk, tsk,” said David. “And you could have had so much more.” Rourke cursed, but closed his mouth.

Visibly mastering himself again, Bentley turned back to David. “My first thought was just to kill you. I’ve thought of it for a long time.”

“A similar thought had crossed my mind,” interjected David.

“But I have reconsidered,” said Bentley a little more loudly. “Perhaps I ought to bide my time, hold you for ransom first. I could put the Exeter fortune to good use immediately.” He began pacing, hands clasped behind his back, an expression of vile satisfaction on his face. “How wrong that it should devolve onto just one person—”

“Who supports hundreds of others,” David said.

“When I have lived with so little for so long. I am a Reece as well, am I not? We had the same grandfather, yet you have lived in splendor all your days, the chosen one, the anointed head of the family, while I scrape by on pennies.”

“Rather more than pennies, I think,” David said. “Pound notes as well, although not perhaps authentic ones.” Bentley glared at him. David shifted his weight, and Marcus caught a glimpse of his brother’s profile. “Enough gossiping,” said David, sounding bored again. “What do you want?”

Bentley drew a deep breath. “What do I want? I want it all. And I shall have it, too.” Rourke stirred, and Bentley slashed one hand at him. “And you yours, yes. But first,” he said to David, a malicious, excited note in his voice, “to business.”

David simply cocked his head. Marcus longed to slip around the front again, but didn’t dare leave. Bentley began pacing again, toward Marcus and then away, tapping his finger on his lips. David turned as well, and Marcus saw the strain on his face. He hoped Bentley only took it for impatience.

“First,” said Bentley thoughtfully as he paced, “the ransom. Some of my debts are… most pressing”— Rourke grinned—“and I require funds at once. Once that’s paid, I’ll set the rest of my plan in motion.”

“My brother, no doubt, will suspect.”

Bentley laughed. “Your brother will be in the dock for your murder,” he returned. “An argument over money, perhaps. Yes, I see just how it went. The wastrel demands money, the duke refuses. The wastrel kills his brother in a fit of rage and takes the money anyway, though it is never found. Everyone knows gamblers can lose everything in a single night.”

“The duchess might protest that story.” Rourke grunted as though prodded.

“That’s true, Mr. Reece. There was a woman here earlier.”

Bentley swore, then calmed himself, beginning to pace again. “That’s no concern. It’s not a love match; she conspired with the wastrel, perhaps. London already believes she duped you into marriage.”

“Framing a woman for murder,” said David acidly. “How gallant of you, Bent.”

From where he was, Marcus couldn’t see Bendey’s face. Instead he saw the sudden stiffening of his cousin’s shoulders, the way he raised his head with a jerk. Marcus caught his breath. No, he prayed, please God, no… But he had never called his cousin Bent. Only David had ever teased him with that nickname.

Slowly Bentley turned. He looked David up and down, realization dawning in his face. “Lying, conniving bastard,” he said incredulously.

David, either not grasping Bentley’s meaning or trying to bluff, simply raised an eyebrow. Marcus tensed, straining his ears for any sounds of help approaching, and heard nothing.

“Kill him,” snarled Bentley. Rourke blinked.

“What fer? He ain’t signed—”

“He’s not Exeter,” Bentley ground out, his face taut with rage. “He’s the damned younger brother! Didn’t you recognize the man you beat to a bloody mess? It’s Reece, you incompetent fool!”

Rourke lurched to his feet. “Why, ye blasted bugger—” He took a step toward David, looking for himself. David merely raised his chin, staring the man full in the face. Marcus felt a surge of helpless pride in his brother; he was playing his role to the end. “What was with the woman?” Rourke whined. “He’d a right proper-looking duchess with him!”

“Stupid!” hissed Bentley. “She tricked you, too. Kill him and be done with it! We’ll have to do something else to get Exeter, now that you’ve let him escape; perhaps his brother’s dead body will bring him.”

Marcus hesitated one more second, listening in vain for the sound of a carriage or soldiers or anyone who could aid him. On the other side of the door, David stood proud and alone. Marcus took a tighter grip on his pistols, drew a deep breath, and shouldered open the rotting door.

* * *

After they had walked for what seemed like forever, Mr. Timms abruptly stopped, forcing Hannah to a halt as well. “What is it?” she whispered anxiously. She had begun to recognize their surroundings. They were very close, almost upon the lane, in fact.

He hesitated, looking over her head. Hannah turned to follow his gaze, and just caught sight of two shadows closing in on a man leaning against a nearby wall and swigging from a flask. They seemed to speak to him, then he lurched upright before apparendy collapsing into the arms of one of Timms’s men. She muffled a gasp behind her hand. “Is he dead?” she demanded of Timms in a whisper.

Just then the report of a pistol echoed through the night, muffled by fog. Everyone froze. Hannah’s heart fell halfway to her feet, it seemed.
Who had fired it, and at whom
?

With renewed urgency, Timms waved the Runners onward. Hannah broke into a near run, trying to keep up with his pace. With a few whispered words, she directed Timms along the lane to the ramshackle building where she’d last seen David.

They stopped well back, in the shadow of one of the warehouses just as a second shot sounded. Hannah closed her eyes, biting down on her fist to keep from crying out. Timms told her, in no uncertain terms, to stay where she was and not to make a sound. She nodded, huddling into her cloak against the chill of the fog and her own fear. She longed to creep forward and peer in the window—she remembered one right beside the door—but didn’t dare. She had given her word, and besides, the Runners were already flitting forward to look inside. After a moment one dashed back to them.

“Trouble, sir,” he whispered. “We can’t see much; it looks like there’s been a struggle. There’s a body on the floor.”

“Dark-haired? Well-dressed?” asked Hannah anxiously in spite of herself. He shook his head.

“Can’t tell, ma’am. The window’s thick with dirt.”

Timms let out a hiss of frustration. “We must know what’s going on inside! I dare not burst in and put two noblemen at risk—it would be the end of my career!”

Hannah, about to tear into him for considering his career at a moment like this, stopped short. Her eyes climbed the crumbling stone chimney, all the way to the gendy sloping roof. She remembered the plop, plop of water dripping dirough the rafters. She seized Timms’s arm. “The roof,” she whispered.

He looked. “What of it? None of my men can get up there,” he said. “They’d fall through, even if they could.”

“I can,” said Hannah.

He looked at her in amazement. “You most certainly cannot.”

“Yes, I can, and I will, unless you have a better idea.” He hesitated. Hannah stripped off her cloak and shoved it at him. “There are holes in the roof. I’ll be able to see in, or at least hear, and signal down to you. Have your men ready.”

“See here,” he said, but Hannah was off, running stealthily over to the chimney. One of the Runners caught up to her as she twisted up a handful of skirt. “Try to signal the first clear opportunity,” he said to her quietly. “When no one is in immediate danger. But don’t wait, if you suspect anyone’s about to die.”

“I won’t,” she promised him, setting her foot into a crack in the pocked stone.

He stepped back, drawing his pistol. “Be careful, ma’am.” Hannah nodded, wiped her hands on her skirt, and began to climb.

It went about as he’d expected. Marcus had aimed his first shot at Rourke, sending the Irishman to the floor with a thud. David, recovering from any surprise, took on the man nearest him. Marcus felled a gaping Bentley with a single blow, then fired his other pistol at the men by the door. But he and David were severely outnumbered, and Marcus soon found himself disarmed and gasping from the fists of Rourke’s men.

“Get back there,” grunted one of them, waving a pistol at him.

Marcus backed up, closer to his brother. David had gone a pasty shade of white. He was listing to one side, braced against the wall with one hand and clutching his side with the other. “All right, David?” he asked, keeping his eyes on the man with the gun.

“Simply splendid,” gasped David. They must have hit him in his broken rib. Marcus stepped in front of him. His head throbbed and his left hand was numb, but he was still in better shape than David.

“Yes, isn’t it splendid,” spat Bentley, dabbing at his split lip as he climbed back to his feet. “The Reece brothers, united in death as never in life. What made you stupid enough to come after him?”

“He’s my brother,” said Marcus evenly.

“Not you,” snarled his cousin. “Him.” He jerked his head toward David. “I know you’re the sort to martyr yourself for the family, but he doesn’t serve any but himself.” David glared at Bentley murderously, but said nothing.

“Perhaps you don’t know us as well as you thought,” Marcus taunted. Bentley had always been a braggart; perhaps he could be maneuvered into gloating some more, which would buy them time if nothing else. Where was Hannah, he wondered desperately. He’d sent her to Timms, certain Timms would be able to summon the Runners more easily than if Hannah just went to Bow Street. But if Timms weren’t home…