Affair (41 page)

Morgan’s shout of rage echoed on the stone walls. The roar of his pistol exploded across the chamber.

“
Baxter.
” Charlotte surfaced from the tumbled red drapes, choking from the dust and the smoke that filled the room.

The flames were spreading swiftly. Against the fiery backdrop, Baxter and Morgan were locked in a violent embrace. They fell to the carpet and rolled wildly. Firelight glinted on steel as they struggled for possession of the other pistol, the one Baxter had brought with him into the room.

Another shot reverberated off the walls.

For a timeless instant, neither man moved.

“
Baxter
. Oh, my God.” Frantic, Charlotte scrambled to the edge of the bed. The rope brought her up short. “
Baxter.
”

Morgan stared at Baxter with wide, stunned eyes. Blood soaked the snow-white front of his pleated shirt. “No. It cannot end in this way. I must fulfill my destiny.”

Baxter started to get to his feet. Morgan clutched at his arm.

“I am fated to triumph over the golden griffin,” Morgan whispered in his shattered voice. “Something has gone wrong.” He broke off, coughing. “All wrong. I am a magician.” Blood welled in his mouth.

He started to say something else but the words were drowned in the crimson tide. His hand slid away from Baxter’s arm. He fell back on the carpet and lay still.

Baxter surged to his feet and turned toward Charlotte. She saw that he had lost his spectacles in the struggle.

“We’ve got to get out of here.” He moved toward her.

“I cannot untie these ropes.” For the first time Charlotte felt real fear of the fire. It occurred to her that she might not escape the dreadful chamber. Panic struck with dizzying force. “I have a knife in my reticule but I don’t know where it is. They took it away from me. Dear God, Baxter.” She stared at him, unable to speak her terror.

“My greatcoat. I dropped it.” Baxter glanced around. “Quick. Where is it?”

“On the floor behind you. Not more than three paces. Straight back.”

He turned and followed her instructions. “Ah, yes. You give excellent directions, my dear.” He rummaged in his pockets and withdrew a blade.

He hurried back to the bed. “I retrieved this from the man who took it away from me earlier.”

Working by touch, he fumbled briefly with the rope, got a grip on it, stretched it taut, and slashed downward with the knife.

She was free. Charlotte nearly collapsed with relief.

“Come. There is no time to lose.” He seized her hand and yanked her off the bed. “You will have to lead the way, Charlotte. Everything in the distance is unfocused and indistinct for me.”

“Yes, of course.” She nearly tripped over Morgan’s still form as she headed toward the door. She looked down and saw that a great quantity of blood stained the front of his shirt and coat. “What if he escapes again?”

“He won’t escape this time,” Baxter said in an emotionless voice. “He’s dead.”

“But how can you be sure?” she demanded as they raced toward the doorway.

“Even I cannot miss at such close range.”

Charlotte was almost to the door when she caught the glint of gold out of the corner of her eye. “Your spectacles.” She scooped them up and put them in his hand. “One of the lenses is broken but the other appears to be whole.”

“Thank you, my dear.” Baxter held the good lens to his eye. “It will do nicely.”

They ran through the door and down the corridor
toward the massive stone staircase. Smoke snaked after them.

The black and crimson room exploded into an inferno.

B
axter estimated that nearly a third of the top floor of the mansion was ablaze by the time he and Charlotte reached the main hall.

He heard shouts in the distance. Panicked servants and assorted ruffians fleeing the fire, he concluded. The confusion was a godsend. It would make escape much simpler. But there was still a risk that one of the villains, unaware that his master was dead, might attempt to halt them.

“Do you see anyone about?” He held the unbroken lens to his eye and searched for signs of movement in the shadows.

“No.” Charlotte was panting but she did not slow her pace. “I think everyone is too busy attempting to escape.”

“Excellent.” He felt the chill wind blowing down the length of the hall and saw darkness at the far end. “The door is open.”

“It would appear that most of the staff has already fled to safety. We passed no one on the staircase, so I think it’s safe to assume that none of the servants feels inclined to rescue the master of the house.”

“As Morgan observed, it’s very difficult to get dependable staff these days.”

They reached the front door and stepped out onto the steps.

“There’s no one around.” Charlotte peered into the shadows. “Which way shall we go? I have no idea where we are.”

“Neither do I, but the flames are certain to draw someone’s attention soon. There must be farmers and tenants in the district. Let’s make for the road.” He took Charlotte’s hand and started down the steps.

“Baxter.”

The alarm in her voice brought him up short. He whirled, the small penknife in his hand.

A dark figure loomed in the doorway.

“Here now, where d’ye think you’re goin’?”

The man raised his hand. Even without the aid of his single eyeglass, Baxter had no difficulty recognizing the shape of a pistol.

“Good heavens,” Charlotte said. “You’re the villain who tried to stop us outside Mrs. Heskett’s house.”

“Aye, and there’ll be none of yer tricks this time.”

“We’re of no use to you now,” Baxter said.

“If the magician went to all that trouble to get hold of ye, I expect yer valuable. Reckon I’ll take ye with me until I see what’s what.”

“Your master is dead in one of those chambers at the top of the house,” Baxter said calmly. “There is no profit in this night’s work. Be off with you before the mansion burns down around your ears.”

“Must be some money in it somewhere,” the villain whined.

Baxter sighed. “If it’s merely money you’re after, we may be able to come to an agreement.”

The villain brightened. “A bargain, sir.”

Before Baxter could offer him a sum of money to seal the deal, a pistol cracked in the darkness behind him.

With a cry of surprise and pain, the villain clutched at his shoulder and reeled back into the hall.

“Baxter. Miss Charlotte.” Hamilton’s voice rang through the night. “Are you all right?”

Baxter turned and raised his broken spectacles to his eye. Hamilton and Ariel rushed toward them from the shelter of a small grove of trees.

Hamilton held a pistol in each hand. His cravat fluttered around his throat in an extremely rakish manner. His boots gleamed. His curls were ruffled from the night breeze. There was an air of exuberant excitement about him that was unmistakable. Baxter had seen that same look in his father.

“Charlotte.” Ariel flew to her. “Oh, thank God, I’ve been so frightened. Hamilton arrived just after those terrible men overpowered the Runners and kidnapped you. We managed to follow you in his new carriage. It is amazingly swift, you know.”

“How clever of you.” Charlotte wrapped her arms very tightly around Ariel. “Clever and brave.”

Hamilton shoved his pistols into his belt. “Sorry to be so late in arriving, brother. Lost the trail a few miles back. Took forever to locate a farmer who remembered hearing a carriage go past his house. He told us about this place and said no one was allowed near it except the servants. Very mysterious, he said. Figured it had to be the magician’s haunt.”

“Brilliant deduction.” Baxter grinned at the dashing image his brother presented. “I do believe that what they say about the earls of Esherton is true.”

Some of Hamilton’s excitement faded. “What’s that?”

“They do everything with style.”

Hamilton blinked in surprise and then he burst into laughter. “It’s in the blood, brother. All of the St. Ives men have style. It just took me a while to notice yours. Quite unique.”

Charlotte raised her head from Ariel’s shoulder. She fixed Baxter with a brilliant, blinding smile that he could see quite clearly even without his broken eyeglasses.

“His style is one of the many things that I have always admired in him,” she said.

Twenty

Two days later Hamilton lounged against one of the long workbenches in the laboratory. He watched with interest as Baxter busied himself arranging and rearranging the chemicals and apparatus that littered every surface.

“How did you cause the curtains to go up in flames and how did you create the explosion in the fireplace?” Hamilton asked.

“I told you I had a box of my new instantaneous lights with me.” Baxter carefully polished a small Wedgwood crucible. “Charlotte distracted Judd long enough for me to break a couple of them in the folds of the curtains. I threw another one into the fire.”

“Very clever. So Morgan Judd murdered his man-of-affairs and Drusilla Heskett and assumed that would be the end of it,” Hamilton said.

“He had not counted on the fact that Mrs. Heskett had told someone that she feared one of her rejected suitors was trying to murder her.” Baxter concentrated on arranging two rows of green glass bottles containing alkaline and metallic salts. “Nor had he made allowances for the possibility that Aunt Rosalind would insist upon investigating the death of her friend. Morgan had a great disdain for the female sex. He always did tend to underestimate them.”

“And in the end he was done in by the ladies.” Hamilton grinned. “Served him right.”

“Indeed.”

“Why do you suppose Mrs. Heskett made the little drawing of Judd’s emblem?”

Baxter shrugged. “We can only speculate. Charlotte believes that it was Judd’s man-of-affairs who actually drew the design in Mrs. Heskett’s sketchbook. He may have been trying to explain the principles behind Judd’s mesmerism techniques.”

Hamilton nodded. “So he drew a picture to help with the task?”

“Perhaps. We’ll never know for certain.”

“You know, Baxter, it’s the oddest thing, but I realize now that I often promised myself I would look inside the wardrobe in our meeting chamber at The Green Table. I knew the magician had to have a secret entrance but somehow I never got around to investigating.”

“I suspect he made certain that none of the club members were inclined to look too closely into his affairs.”

Hamilton’s mouth thinned. “You mean he used his mesmerism tricks on us to convince us not to explore the chamber?”

“It seems likely.” Baxter set down a glass bottle.

He was weary of answering questions. He had retreated to his laboratory in order to devote himself to the task of setting it to rights. Tidying up this chamber was something he did whenever he wished to ponder a subject. He found it soothing to clean retorts, polish instruments, and inventory his collection of flasks and jars while he did his thinking.

Unfortunately, his plans for extended contemplation had gone awry when Hamilton had bounded into the house twenty minutes earlier, eager to discuss the events of the past several days.

“Hard to believe that Drusilla Heskett was having an affair with a man-of-affairs,” Hamilton said. “Baxter, do you think that most of the ladies of the ton are engaged in illicit liaisons with everyone from the footman to their husband’s best friend?”

“I expect the number of women involved in such affairs is no greater than the number of gentlemen who are engaged in similar liaisons with the children’s governess or their best friend’s wife.”

Hamilton winced. “Not a pleasant thought.” His expression grew abruptly serious. “I don’t think that I would like to find myself wed to a lady who took paramours.”

“That is definitely something we have in common.” Baxter examined a cracked flask. “I wonder if my glassmaker can mend this.”

“Miss Ariel would never betray her wedding vows,” Hamilton said softly. “She is a virtuous, extremely noble-minded lady.”

Baxter raised one brow. “If you’re thinking of making an offer of marriage in that direction, I had better give you a warning.”

Hamilton held up one hand. “No lectures, please. I
am well aware that I will not come into my inheritance for a few more years. But I would like to remind you that there is nothing in Father’s will that says I cannot marry in the meantime.”

“Father’s will is not the problem. I don’t give a damn whether or not you choose to wed. As it happens, I believe Miss Ariel would make you an excellent countess.”

Hamilton brightened. “Do you?”

“Indeed. But I had better tell you that if you expect to offer for her, you must be prepared to have your reputation and personal affairs thoroughly investigated by Charlotte. I can promise you that she won’t allow her sister to marry a man who has the inclinations of a rake.”

Hamilton smiled slightly. “In other words, our dear, departed father is not a good recommendation for me?”

“No, he is not.”

Hamilton exhaled heavily. “Then perhaps it’s just as well that I don’t take after him in every particular. Between you and me, I have no interest in pursuing little opera dancers or hanging about in brothels. I want a marriage of true love and affection.”