Barbara Metzger (36 page)

“Because you are a kind and honest man, a true gentleman.”

He raised his voice in frustration. “Then why the devil won’t you let me in your bedroom?”

His mother struck him on the shoulder with her opera glasses, but a woman in the next box giggled.

Mortified, Athena stared at the stage with a smile fixed on her face. So what if the hero of the opera was staggering around with a knife in his chest, singing his death throes? If she had a knife she might be tempted to use it, too, and smile while doing so.

“If you will not let me express my love for you in the best way I know, then tell me how. You owe me that, Attie, for being so patient. Tell me what I have to do to win back your favor. I swear I do not know.”

“You have to start trusting me,” she whispered as loudly as she dared.

Ian sat back and looked at her as if her peacock feather headdress had let out a squawk. “I let you go to the museum with Carswell, didn’t I?”

“I do not mean that way. I swore to be faithful, and you must know I would never forsake my vows.”

“Then how can I show I trust you?”

“By treating me as an adult, as an equal. I am not a child to be protected, or a dumb beast in your keeping. Nor am I a mistress in your keeping, wanting to be bought with jewels and honeyed words. I am your wife.”

“No wonder there are so many estranged couples. I thought a wife could be a lover, too.”

“Of course she can, but she has to be more than a bedmate. I want to be treated as your friend.”

He jerked his head to where Carswell and Doro sat at the back of the box, in the shadows. “I already have a friend.”

“As your partner, then, for that is what I am, your partner through the corridors of time.”

“I’d wager none of the doors on that corridor are locked,” he muttered as he escorted his wife out of the opera box. “Athena has a headache,” he told the others as they left.

“I’ll bet she does,” Carswell snickered under his breath when they went past. “Every night.”

Ian managed to step on his friend’s toes before reaching the back of the box and leading Athena down the hall where they could have a modicum of privacy before the intermission.

Once he was positive no one could overhear, he told her his plan to trap the bastard, Brown. The earl had not considered doing so before, would never think of telling a delicate, sensitive woman his harsh plan now, but he saw no other way of winning back Athena’s regard. Reluctantly, then, he described how they were going to bring the disgruntled groom out into the open where they could deal with him the way he deserved.

Too much time had been spent at this investigation, he told her, waiting for the villain to make another move. “But we have kept his targets so well protected that he could never get near enough to act, or for us to catch him.”

Too much time had gone by, Ian had decided, with his wife in distress and his house full of guests. Rensdale could not go home while Brown was on the loose. His sister and Carswell could not go to Scotland without his and Athena’s chaperonage. They had promised not to, although heaven knew they disappeared often enough to travel to India. His mother could not return to Bath, where the captain had offered to escort her. He could not send Troy off to school, not even as a day scholar—not when danger might be waiting at the next corner.

His home would know no peace while Alfie Brown was free, and he would know no conjugal bliss, it seemed.

“I am determined to catch Brown in the act, to prove his guilt. Troy cannot say for certain that Brown shot him, for he cannot remember what happened, and Rensdale did not identify his attacker. No one saw the cur lighting the fires. We have a good case against the man, but not good enough.”

“What you are saying makes sense, but how do you intend to force him into sight of a score of armed guards and Bow Street Runners?”

“Well, I was not going to tell you because there is a mite of risk, but since we are partners, I will have to, I suppose. With a bit of skullduggery of our own, disguises and such, your brother will appear unprotected. He will walk in the park across the street daily, at fixed times, giving Brown confidence enough to make a plan. We will make it appear that we have stopped watching, or stopped caring.”

Athena was thinking. She did not like the conclusion she drew. “You intend to use my brother as bait! You are going to tie Troy out like a lamb? Never! I will take his place, that is what we will do. I am near his height, and slender enough to fit his clothes. With my hair tucked under a cap, and using his crutches I can—”

“Never!” The idea of his bride in breeches sounded enticing, but her facing a bitter, vengeful, violent man was impossible. She was his wife, dash it! “Never,” he repeated, louder.

“I thought it was safe?” she asked, looking around the deserted hallway to make sure no one could hear his angry voice.

“There is always some element of risk when dealing with the criminal mind.”

She raised her chin. “I thought we were partners.”

“Partners do not let their wives, ah, their partners go into danger.”

“But you would send my little brother?”

“No, I would send Rensdale, as a matter of fact.”

“Oh, that is all right then, I suppose.” Her shoulders relaxed and her fists unclenched. “Ah, how much danger?”

“As little as possible while still letting Brown show his hand.”

“And you persuaded Rensdale to agree to this? Why, he has hardly left the house since the fires.”

“Oh, I told him I’d write to his wife about a certain housemaid he’s been trying to meet in the broom closet. He’d rather face a would-be killer than Lady Rensdale.”

She nodded. “Very well. When do we start?”

“We?”

She tapped her foot, not at all in time to the music. “Partners, remember? Besides, I know what Alfie Brown looks like. You do not.”

He moaned, but agreed that she could help. Then he asked, “Do you still like me, a little?”

“I like you a lot, silly.”

“Then you still love me?”

“I never stopped loving you, Ian. No matter how angry I might get, no matter how your high-handedness infuriates me, I doubt if I could ever stop.”

“Good, because I think I love you more every day.”

“Do you, truly?” She looked up into his eyes, seeking answers in their brown depths.

Ian gazed at her, then touched her lips with his gloved fingers. “I’ll just have to spend the rest of my life proving it to you, won’t I?”

He was ready to start that instant, replacing his fingers with his lips, but the audience burst into applause and people started to pour out of their boxes. “Botheration.”

“You can start showing me tomorrow, when we catch the criminal.”

Which meant her door was still locked. “Botheration” did not half describe his sentiments.

*

Athena took the dog out for a walk in the park at nine o’clock the next morning. She passed an ink-stained poet with his pad, a footman and a maid snuggling in the shrubbery, an old man asleep on one of the benches, and a tweed-capped bird-watcher, with his telescope trained on the trees. Two gentlemen walked past and tipped their hats, and three young men in evening dress staggered down the path, as if coming home from their nighttime revels. A bent old crone leaned on her cane near the ornamental fountain, and a bespectacled scholar sat beneath a tree, his book open on his knees. Half an hour later, Rensdale left Maddox House, looked furtively in both directions, scurried across the street, and took up a seat on an iron bench.

He opened the sack he carried and pulled out a nut, to feed the squirrels. He stared at it, wondering if he was supposed to open the cursed thing for the vermin, then tossed it as far from himself as he could.

Athena went past with the dog, who picked up the nut. Her brother looked at her sourly, liking the idea of her impersonating Troy far better. Both of them had been overruled by Marden.

Athena smiled, pulled Roma away from Rensdale’s boots, and whispered, “Try to act as if you are enjoying yourself, for heaven’s sake. The day is fine, the birds are singing, you are feeding your little furry friends. You are a nature lover, released from your sickbed at last.”

“I am a sitting duck,” he whispered back, kicking out at a sparrow who came to investigate. “And your husband is sick in the head if he thinks this is going to work.”

“It will. Ian knows what he is doing.”

“Hah, can’t even bed his wife, I hear. At least I can do that!’

Athena tossed the dog’s found nut right at her half-brother’s feet, hoping a squirrel would come climb up his leg.

He was ignoring her indignation, complaining: “Leastways, I could bed my wife if I were home.”

“Soon, Spartacus,” she said, not looking at him, but at the curricle driving past the park’s entrance for the third time.

No one threatened Rensdale but a pigeon that landed on his hat. He shouted and jumped up as though he were shot. The old crone, the scholar and the bird-watcher rushed to his side. Two curricles outside the gates nearly collided, and the three inebriated young bloods nearly tipped over the bench where the old man was sleeping, in their hurry to get to Athena’s brother. The whiskered old man muttered and shook his cane at them, then rolled over and went back to his nap.

After three days, Ian was disgusted. Rensdale was used to the pigeons and the squirrels by now. Ian was not used to sleeping alone. His wife let him kiss her good night, which only made things worse, and harder. She might have let him in her bedroom, but he would never know. The door was unlocked, although not open, but her maid reported to his valet that the mistress was “indisposed.” That did not keep her from trotting out every morning with the dog, into the nearby park and into danger.

His heart was in his throat every morning she did, despite having taken every precaution he could. His men were growing weary and bored, especially the lad stationed up in the tree, and the one who was hidden in a privet hedge. A poodle on a jeweled lead had raised his leg on that hedge, and Ian almost had a mutiny on his hands. He almost had another one when Troy argued about taking his turn in the park. The only one who thought that was a good idea was Rensdale, who won frowns and jeers from everyone else.

Princess Hedwig Hafkesprinke made an appearance in the park with Lady Doro as attendant one morning, to brighten the wait. The three choice spirits were replaced by three barristers in white wigs arguing over a point of law, and the poet had become an artist with a sketchbook. The old man still slept on the bench with his cane beside him.

Ian circled the park on his horse, in his curricle, on foot. The pistol in his waistband and the knife in his boot gave him confidence, but the wait was making him doubt his strategy. What if Brown had left London after the fires, satisfied that he had wreaked enough havoc? They might never find him, and Rensdale and Troy might never be safe. Ian could only wonder if the man included Athena in his list of Renslows to be eliminated.

He found out the next morning.

His men were in their places, seemingly oblivious to Rensdale, who was taking aim at the squirrels with his nuts. Anyone could have approached him. No one did. From his place across the street, Ian gave the signal that Rensdale should go home, the guards should disperse, and Athena should stop letting the fool dog growl at the sleeping old man on his bench.

Athena tugged on Roma’s leash. “Come on, then. Let us find you a bone in the kitchens,” she said, even knowing that the dog could not hear.

“Not so fast, missy.” The old man rolled over and grabbed at her arm. With his other hand he pulled at the handle of his cane. It opened to reveal a long blade, which was suddenly at Athena’s throat. “One yell an’ yer dead.”

Athena was too stunned to scream. “Why, you’re not—”

“On yer husband’s payroll? I reckon I am now, Countess.” Still holding her tightly, Alfie Brown reached with his knife hand to pull off the fake beard he wore. “I figure he’ll pay me plenty to get you back. I was plannin’ on runnin’ you through next time that fleabag went after my boots, but this way is better. Gettin’ even is all well and good, but it don’t put food in yer belly. It don’t get you passage out of the country, neither. With yer nob hirin’ all them Runners and postin’ a reward, I couldn’t stay in England, now could I?”

Knowing that it was only a matter of time before someone noticed her plight, Athena stalled, rather than let Brown drag her out of the park. “I have no doubts that Lord Marden will be happy to purchase you a berth on a ship going somewhere. He will—”

“Oh, I figure he’ll pay more’n that to get you back safe an’ sound. I seen the way he keeps lookin’ at you. Not now, o’ course. He’s takin’ his horse back to the stables,
he is. Prime bit of blood and bone it is, too. You landed in clover, missy, sure enough. Imagine, my little sister a countess.”

Athena’s arm was growing numb from his tight grip. She struggled anyway, saying, “I am not your sister.”

“O’ course you are. Same as yer Rensdale’s, that ass. Same father for all of us, him, me, you and the cripple.”

“Troy is not a cripple!”

“He’s not dead, neither. The horse moved, or I’d of had a clean shot.”

“Why, Alfie? I cannot understand it. Why would you try to kill Troy? He never hurt you. He never hurt anyone. And Rensdale. He gave you a job, a place to stay.”

“Crumbs, like he’s been throwin’ at the pigeons. Our da promised my mum an allowance an’ a cottage. What did she get? The workhouse, that’s what. Soon as the old man died, Rensdale had her tossed out without a shilling. You and the others had everything. We had nothing.”

“That was wrong of Spartacus, I am sure. Perhaps he did not know of the arrangement our father made. When we explain to him—”

Brown laughed, an ugly sound near to Athena’s ear. “He knew, all right. I should of been livin’ at the Hall, wearin’ fancy clothes, ridin’ horses like your earl’s.”

“But you were… That is…”

“Illegitimate? A bastard? Go ahead an’ say it. I’ve heard it my whole life, haven’t I? An’ I owe the old man for that, too. He could of married my mum when his first wife died. ’Stead he found a pretty young bride to take her place, yer mother, not the woman what gave birth to his second son. He gave me his bum leg, but not his name, the blighter. Now I aim to get what I have comin’.”