Celeste Bradley - [The Liar's Club 02] (10 page)

Keeping his back to her, he left the lovingly wrapped banknotes alone, taking only the tightly bound portfolios. Wadsworth’s files would be worth more to this mission than all his wealth.

Swiftly he stuffed them into the small bag that was strapped over his shoulder, keeping them in the precise order in which they had lain in the safe, and closed the clasp. He shut the safe and held out his hand.

“My picks.”

Clara looked down at her hands, surprised to see her fingers still tightly wrapped around the long metal picks. The metal had bitten into her skin and her fingers opened stiffly after clenching for many minutes. She likely had red marks driven deeply into her palms.

He’d frightened her worse than she’d thought.

Frightened, were you? Is that why your knees are weak and you can’t catch your breath?

Of course it was. What else could it be but fear?

Fear and a tall, broad-shouldered, slim-hipped male body that was made all the more tempting by the black mask above …

Clara shook her head before that sharp little voice could answer. There was something quite seriously wrong with her. Watching Monty warily, she stepped forward to drop the picks into the dim blur of his waiting hand, then retreated behind the chair once more.

He’d touched her so … longingly? No, it hadn’t been mere longing. There had been something darker and more intense in the delicate sensuous strokes of his fingers.

Bentley had desired her physically and she’d been willing enough, if never terribly enthusiastic. But he’d never
ached
for her, the way that Monty’s silent touch had revealed that he did.

And she had certainly never responded so to a simple touch. For a moment, she allowed herself to wonder what it would be like if she really were Rose.

Rose could carry on with a thief, if she were careful. And if she were caught, she’d shame no one but herself. Of course, poor little Rose would never dream of doing such a thing. Almost the only thing the girl had in the world was her virtue.

Monty finished locking the safe box and turned to her. “I know the way out. You don’t have to show me the door,” he said softly. His voice was gentle, almost apologetic.

Suddenly Clara felt silly for fearing him, if that was indeed the emotion she’d felt. What had he done but
touch her? He’d not harmed her at all, despite every opportunity.

“No, I’ll take you back.” She smiled and reached for his hand once more.

This time, however, she was profoundly aware of how large his hand was, and of how warm. There was something new in his grasp. Awareness and … caution? He held her fingers carefully, as if to let her know that she could pull free at any time if she wanted.

He was kind, she decided. Kind and daring and very, very … interesting.

The girl said not a word as she led Dalton back up the black stairwell to the attic. They stopped before the window where he had entered.

“My master will be opening his safe in a few days’ time.” She cocked her head and smiled slightly in the faint glow through the sooty window.

Dalton found that he missed that wild-child grin.

“You’d best get all them papers back in there by then,” she added. Then the wicked smile flashed all too briefly in the dimness.

Startled, Dalton realized that she hadn’t been fooled at all. Had she seen him take only the files, or had she guessed?

She stepped back, almost disappearing in the attic shadows. “Fare thee well, Monty.” The soft scuff of her shoes moved away, and she was gone from his sight.

“Wait. You didn’t tell me your name.”

Her soft laughter came dancing back to him through the darkness.

“Why, ‘tis Rose, of course.”

The stews of London smelled nothing like food. This portion of the city reminded James Cunnington more of decay than cooking. The loose community that had built up over the years around the estuaries of the Thames—long since shortened to
stews
—attracted the lowest rung of civilization. Excrement, both animal and human, could be found in the gutters. Everywhere was the pervasive stench of urine, both new and old. Coal smoke mixed with the miasma to cause a choking brew that nearly blocked the sun, even at the hour of noon.

There was no sum now, for the hour neared midnight. Torches lit the entrances of those establishments that could not afford lanterns or perhaps did not want to risk almost constant theft and breakage.

He and Collis were here to investigate the subjects of yet another Sir Thorogood cartoon. They’d identified more than two dozen such subjects today and they were bloody tired of it. Now they were on the hunt for a whore who went by the name of Fleur.

The public houses lined the street and whores lined the alleys. For a penny, one could even lie down with one of diemon a straw pallet in a tiny wretched crib. If a bloke only wanted to spare a ha’penny, or perhaps just a swallow or two from his flask, he could take a whore up against the alley wall and never so much as wrinkle his trousers.

James had tried it once in his younger and more drunken days, but the odor from the woman’s rotting teeth had doused his lust like a candle. He’d paid her anyway and ducked off into the night, half-shamed but mostly relieved that he hadn’t followed through.

Still, he could read the thoughts in Collis’s mind as if they were his own, not so long ago. It was not easy for a gentleman to take care of his satisfaction. Young ladies were off limits, as they should be. Mistresses were expensive and James had spent too much time with Simon—son of a Covent Market whore—to ever wish that life on a woman. Widows were a possibility, but they often expected marriage. Wives were the most convenient but the trickiest, having husbands who tended toward jealousy.

Lavinia had been a wife. Of course, Lavinia had also been a vicious, kidnapping, murdering French spy who had brought about the deaths of several of the Liars before she was stopped, but when James had met her he hadn’t known that. All he’d known was that she knew how to do things he’d only heard about and that seemed character reference enough for him.

He would never be that stupid again. And neither would Collis if James had anything to do with it.

“Put your eyes back in your head. Col. Those bosoms are constructed from whalebone and that laughter comes from opium.”

Collis pulled his head back into the unmarked carriage, grinning and unrepentant. “Don’t worry, James. I’m only looking. I won’t go blind from looking.”

James snorted. “No, not from
looking.”

They spared a moment for boyish snickers, then returned to the discussion of their plan, which had been interrupted by Collis’s distraction. James wasn’t sure how much Dalton had revealed to his heir about the Liar’s Club, so he’d kept the origin of his quest secret, only telling Collis that he needed to track down Sir Thorogood’s most recent subjects. Collis had agreed so willingly and unquestioningly that James suspected his
friend would have come along on any excuse in order to occupy his mind.

“We’re two young louts with more money than brains, and we’ve a wager at White’s that we’ll be the first to find the mysterious Fleur.”

Collis raised a brow. “I like it. Original.”

It wasn’t original at all, they soon learned. The first publican they hailed answered almost before they got the question out.

“Don’t know any Fleur, she ain’t here,” he recited as if by rote. “But there’s a girl in the corner over there that’ll let you call her anything you want.”

James and Collis peered through the smoky pub to spy a young girl sitting on the corner bench. She was pretty and fairly clean, but her eyes held a level of emptiness that bordered on idiocy. Collis whistled low. “I don’t think she’s a French spy, do you?”

James flinched. His affair with Lady Winchell and her subsequent treasonous acts had been made all too public by Lavinia herself. Her defense had been that she had never meant to shoot the Prime Minister, but had truly been aiming at her former lover, James. The gossip sheets had outdone themselves for days, although the furor had subsided when the Prince had decorated James at the same time he had knighted Simon Raines.

Collis sent him an apologetic glance. “Oh … sorry, old man.”

James forced a careless smile and shrugged off the familiar burn of humiliation and regret. He was simply going to have to get used to this sort of thing.

Collis turned back to the publican, adopting a slur and waved the wrinkled bit of newsprint with the cartoon on it. “Want the real Fleur. Want her! Got the brass to pay her well, and you, too.”

The man shrugged as if he’d heard it all too many times to care. “No Fleur. Nobody knows her. Damned paper sending you sods all over the city, lookin’ for some whore what don’t exist.” He turned his back, muttering about wasted time and sorry sods.

That was the story all over the stews, and finally James and collis called it an evening. Or rather, a morning.

“These girls change their names more often than they change their drawers,” James complained when they were back inside the carriage. “She’s long gone, if she ever existed. Who’s next on the list?”

Collis pulled out the file and flipped through the cartoons within. “We’ve identified everyone in this lot except for two of the four people in the Fleur cartoon. I’ll wager anything that Fleur is a figment of Sir Thorogood’s imagination.”

James nodded. “Sounds good to me. I doubt we’ll ever identify the third man, with only half his face to go on. We’ve two hours until dawn. Let’s get some sleep now. I’ve much to do tomorrow.”

“You mean today.” Collis yawned. “Well, if you wanted to cure me of ever visiting a whore, you just did.” Shuddering, he glanced out the carriage window at the women still wandering the streets. “What a life.”

“I wouldn’t call it that.” James shook his head. “That’s no life at all.”

There was no reason for Dalton to be looking behind him every step of the walk to the club the next morning, yet he was. He felt compelled to check under every cap, every tall hat, that filled the streets around him.

A great many people were about today, both walking
and driving. Carriages and carts on the cobbles, people of all sorts on the walks. Dalton had his own money tucked deep inside his waistcoat, but he knew that many of those around him would lose their purses today.

A glint of light hair caught his eye as a gentleman doffed his hat to some ladies and Dalton squinted to see through the crowd. No, the bloke was too old …

Dalton was beginning to wonder if he was losing his mind. He had seen the fair-haired man twice more since the attack in the alley yesterday, or at least he thought he had. Both times had been a mere flicker of an image at the corner of his vision, yet when he’d tried to get a better look, the stranger was not there.

He’d described the fellow to the Liars in detail, but none of them had any help to offer, nor had they seemed terribly impressed by his urgency. After the first time he hadn’t mentioned
it
to them again.

He would deal with this one on his own, as he was dealing with the Sir Thorogood case.

Which was going nowhere fast. He’d spent two evenings attending every ridiculous ball and excruciating musicale that he could bear, and still he had not flushed out anyone who made protest of his posturing.

Except perhaps the blond man. He could very well be associated with the fellow, or even be the artist himself, though he looked more like a cricket master than a flamboyant artist.

Still, unless the fellow left a drawing of himself behind, Dalton didn’t stand much chance of identifying him by description alone. It was too bad that the Liars didn’t have an artist of their own …

He stopped in his tracks. What a brilliant idea. An artist could supply every Liar with a sketch of suspicious characters. The identification rate would soar. No enemy
operative would be safe within the boundaries of London or Westminster!

Dalton realized that he was standing stock-still in the center of the walk with a stupid grin on his face, like a child who had spotted the confectioner’s shop. Two ladies stepped around him with a whisper and a twitter, followed by two footmen laden with shopping. Dalton removed his hat and bowed deeply in his best Sir Thorogood manner.

“My apologies, dear ladies. I was only struck still by your brilliance. Do forgive me.”

The twittering increased, but their gazes turned from judging to flirtatious as they walked on. Dalton returned his hat to his head and turned to cross the busy thoroughfare.

He’d been traversing the dangerous streets of London for many years, and the way of it was second nature. Keep one’s attention focused on both lanes of heavy mid-morning traffic, watch for oncoming carriages, carts, and riders, and run for one’s life.

He’d almost made it across when a man on horseback veered suddenly to cut him off. Backpedaling, Dalton cursed under his breath and made to dodge around the horse’s rear.

The heavy rattle of wheels sounded far too close and Dalton jerked his head to the left to see an ale wagon bearing directly on him at high speed. He leaped forward out of the way, his coattails clearing the rushing vehicle by mere inches.

Only to find himself in the path of a coal cart coming fast from his right. The lead horse threw up his head in alarm. There was nothing that Dalton could do but to reach for the harness and pray.

His hand closed around the leather strap at the horse’s
jaw and he was jerked from his feet. With all his might, he pulled down on the strap, using the leverage to swing one leg up on the cart horse’s back. There he hung sideways on the wild-eyed animal feeling like a circus fool, but at least he was not lying chopped beneath sixteen iron-shod hooves.

The carter called halt and Dalton felt the horse come to a shuddering stop. Gratefully, he slipped off to land on his feet and released his death grip on the chin strap.

“Oy, there, guv’nor! You all right, sir?” The drover stumped forward to hold the horse, his sweating face horrified and fearful. “I din’t see you ‘tall! The coal’s that heavy, it don’t stop easy. Tell me you’re all right, sir.”