Emily Baker (10 page)

As if in answer to his summons, the young baron strode through the door at that minute looking as if he were ready to choke the first man to cross his path.

“Over here, Stanhope.” Jameson stood and waited just long enough for the baron to catch sight of him before retaking his seat. The more dismissively or offhand the quality were treated, the closer they swarmed.

Stanhope frowned but pushed his way through the crowd. From the careless way he jostled the dockworkers and warehousemen aside he either was looking for a fight or just had one. Perhaps the estimable Mrs. Fitzgerald’s charms had a chink after all.

“Have the others already left?” Stanhope continued to rake the room, looking for a familiar face. How timely.

“The rest of our party awaits us in the back parlor enjoying their brandy. I felt the need for something a bit less refined at this point of the night.” Jameson gestured to the chair opposite his. “Will you join me, my lord. Or can I show you to the parlor.”

“Less refined?” Stanhope fixed on the whiskey bottle. His lordship appeared to be in quite a sour mood. All the better. “Suits me perfectly.”

Jameson could have said the same.

The ever-vigilant barmaid placed a fresh glass on the table before Stanhope was even seated. Just the sort of service Jameson required, as the slut well knew. He expected all of those who served him not only to meet but to anticipate his desires. All who did realized there were consequences should they fail.

He poured a healthy portion of whiskey from the bottle into the baron’s glass and topped off his own. “
Slainte.
”

Stanhope nodded as he grabbed his glass, then drained the contents without so much as a sputter. Interesting. A lover’s quarrel by all appearances. The night was getting better and better.

“I hear congratulations are in order,” he observed as he poured the younger man another and raised his own glass in salute.

“Congratulations?”

Stanhope fixed him with the first bit of clarity he’d shown since joining him at the table. It was a grim, cold clarity rooted in bitter truth. Jameson recognized it well, recognized and knew just how to exploit it.

“Only if you mean for my timely escape.” The baron gulped this drink as well.

Jameson poured him another. “Then to your escape.”

“Aye.” After a first sip, Stanhope paused to stare at the contents of his glass, the effects of so much drink so quickly finally pierced the shield of his distress. He scrubbed a hand over his face and closed his eyes. “My escape.”

Jameson took a sip from his own glass. The two of them might just as easily have been alone for all they sat in a crowded tavern. The party that awaited them could wait a little longer. The ones he already controlled would see to the contentment of those he had on the hook.

Much as he would love to seek all the details of however Mrs. Fitzgerald had fouled her nest so he could use them to his advantage, he knew better than to rush things. Stanhope, like most men, would be all the more grateful and far less suspicious if allowed to let his story unfold at his own pace.

And there was always a story to be told.

“I would have laid the world at her feet . . .” Stanhope began the litany of his trials. Jameson was all ears as the whiskey and self-pity flowed.

He could not say he was shocked to learn that Maura Fitzgerald had lost her chance to become a countess, and in such a classic way. She was but a woman after all. All women were weak.

Despite their denials and coquettish refusals, most merely lacked a strong guiding hand when it came to both fidelity and knowing how to please their man in all things. Maura Fitzgerald merely ran true to form. And Stanhope was certainly not man enough to give her the guidance she needed.

While his purpose was better suited by her banishment from Stanhope’s sphere, under other circumstances he would not mind teaching the young lord how to ensure his woman’s loyalty. Perhaps with his next mistress.

His own taste did not usually run to women of her sort—save as a means to an end or for quick satisfaction. Most men’s fancy pieces prided themselves on the pleasures they could offer through artifice and pretense. He preferred to teach his conquests how to please him unencumbered by previous experience or expectations.

Given her status as Stanhope’s mistress, however, Maura Fitzgerald had surprised him the other night. She possessed a naturally sensual appeal not easily forgotten or ignored, despite the outward devotion she had practically poured over Stanhope to keep him in her thrall that night. Although he’d heard Stanhope was not her first lover, there was an unspoiled quality about her he found intriguing. She had seemed to lack the deceit of others of her ilk.

That she was open to the advances of another when she so clearly had Stanhope in her grasp he could have predicted given the aura of ripeness she exuded. But that she would risk everything Stanhope offered for a liaison with a man such as Garrett Lynch was disappointing. Her behavior only served to prove his point over the weakness of women.

Still, it was a rare woman who surprised him once, let alone twice. Perhaps when he had guided his latest recruits to his quest for power through this particular thicket he might consider paying her a call. He had one or two surprises of his own he would like to try with her. If that meant he might be poaching on Lynch’s property by that time, so much the better.

“. . . so I left. She never even answered me. So I left.” Stanhope looked forlornly at his empty glass, finally finished with his litany of sorrow.

If he started blubbering, Jameson would be hard-pressed not to cast up his accounts. Young bucks who believed there was such a thing as love, and that they had lost it, could be quite tiresome.

“Perhaps your lady was too flabbergasted by the accusation to be able to form an answer,” he offered, taking the more sympathetic tack of the possible options open to him. Stanhope might vilify his mistress himself, but he was probably not yet ready to hear a word against her from another’s lips.

Stanhope shook his head. He was tipsy enough to be careless but not quite in his cups—the best state for manipulation.

“Nope. She’s guilty,” he assured his glass. “I failed to see it at first, but she had the look of a woman who had been thoroughly kissed and left wanting more. Not that I have ever actually seen a woman like that. But her lips were all puffy-like. So were her eyes. But that was from the crying.”

“Enough.” Jameson clapped his soon-to-be protégé on his shoulder and pushed his chair back. “Our friends and a little night air outside the city will help you put all of this in perspective. Perhaps you’ll see things from a fresh eye in a day or two and be able to straighten this all out.”

“Do you think so? Really?” A flare of hope brightened the baron’s face as he looked up. A few more of those lit and extinguished with the fool’s paramour and Lynch’s unwitting cooperation and Stanhope would be his. How delightful.

“Of course. Let us go seek the company of other men and eschew all women this night.” He grasped Stanhope under the arm and helped him to his feet as he stood. “Allow yourself a little time and perspective.”

“Let us away then, good friend.” Stanhope made his way with exaggerated care toward the back room.

Jameson smiled. His trap was nearly sprung. Soon he would have enough influence in the southeastern portion of Ireland to match that which he had already manipulated in the north. The truth of his birth might preclude the quality from including him in their exclusive social circles should they ever learn that truth, but he would always have a place in the back rooms and inner circles of power.

The rest of his assembled guests greeted his arrival in the company of Stanhope with cheers. This young man carried a great deal of sway within his set; snaring him would go a long way toward achieving his ends.

“What are we about tonight?” Percy Masters’s irritatingly high-pitched question broke through the chatter.

“Come with me, gentlemen. I trust you have all brought your mounts and are prepared for a bit of fun?”

Their interest whetted with several hours of drinking as they waited, and their enthusiasm for the night’s entertainment fired by the ones among them already loyal to his cause, Jameson led his marks out into the street through The Crown’s back entrance.

Once they were well outside the city environs he called a halt after passing through a hedgerow into an open pasture. Darkness enfolded them. The night air was crisp and clean. The ride had sobered some of the spirits out of his party as they gathered around him, just as he intended. He wanted to keep them off balance.

The only sounds were the mating calls of the summer crickets and the blowing and whickering of the horses.

“Thank you gentlemen for joining me on this little expedition. I know that I promised you some fun with a different kind of sport, so let me begin by apologizing for luring you here under false pretenses.”

There was a murmur of questions, but no protest rang clear. Rabbits in his snare. He plunged ahead. This oration got them every time.

“Who among us is not a loyal son of Ireland? Who among us would deny our king our sworn duty?”

The murmurs swelled.

“Who among us does not pay taxes on our lands and revenues to support and defend our king and country? And who among us does not try his very best to keep food on the tables and roofs over the heads of our tenants.”

He paced his horse past the gathering of present and future followers. He had them in the palm of his ever-so-deserving hand. “If any of us does not do these things and thank God that he can, then let him ride across this green soil of Eire, through our native hawthorns and back to the city.”

“But if you love our people, our king, and our native soil, let me hear from you now”

The shouts ringing across the meadow were gratifying, as always. This was not the first time he had delivered this speech, nor would it be the last. It worked because each time he gave it, he believed it.

When the shouts died out he continued. “Not far from here lives a man who does not believe as we do. He preaches sedition to the children in his school. He undermines their loyalty to the king, to Ireland.”

He paused long enough to get his point across. “This man encourages his students and their parents to finance his cause rather than pay their rightful rents and taxes. What say you to this man?”

Boos and hisses echoed across the meadow, along with calls to teach this man a lesson, to stop him. Mobs were so easy to create, to manipulate.

“I say it is our duty—as loyal citizens, as true Irishmen, and as Christians—to visit this man and help him to understand the error of his way. Who’s with me?”

The shouts were deafening.

He waited a moment, relishing the power, before claiming their attention once more. “While some of you may be carrying weapons for self-protection, Bart here will hand out pistols for you all. These are ready to be used, but I hope you do not; they are for defense only. We don’t wish to harm anyone.”

His disclaimer was met with agreement. He pressed on, determined to bring them all completely into the fold. “To avoid detection we have party masks, and to readily identify one another, Charles will hand out sashes that show up with ease, even at a distance or in the dark.”

Bart and Charles began handing out their bounty from the sacks they had brought along for this jaunt.

“Ooooooohhhh, costumes!” Percy Masters’s squeal echoed.

Jameson grimaced. Masters was such a fool.

“Again I say.” He raised his voice to be heard above the clamor of preparations. “If any of this makes you uncomfortable, if you are not with us, Ireland’s truest sons, you are welcome to leave now. But if you want to protect your king, your country, and your God, then take your equipment and let us ride.”

A roar of approval swelled amongst the recruits as he wheeled away and began to canter across the meadow.

“They were doing what to a
priest
?” Sean kicked off the coverlet and swung to a sitting position.

“Partial hanging. Gruesome.” Garrett handed his friend one of the mugs of coffee his landlady had just brought up. “We provided the distraction and Daniel got him out of there.”

“Still, what would possess anyone to bring back such methods? They were banned back in Wolfe Tone’s days.” Sean scrubbed a hand over his jaw and then through his hair, tousling his curls to even wilder abandon than a night on Garrett’s sofa had afforded him.

“Aye.” Garrett took a sip from his mug and sat down in his chair with a sigh. The sofa Sean had used last night looked far more comfortable than the couple of hours of sleep he’d gotten in the church nave after delivering the priest they’d saved into the hands of his brethren. The coffee’s welcome warmth washed through him.

“The military may have stopped, but those Peep O’ Day Boys from last century have turned themselves into the Orangemen of today. All hell has broken loose.” Three facts linked together to bother him: the viciousness of the act, the research evident in picking the target for last night’s raid—a teacher and priest, no less—and the company riding out to catch and torture last night. “Not that it’s ever been far away despite the repeal of the Catholic Suppressions or passing the Act of Union.”

“What do you know of the Devil’s Club?” he asked Sean as his friend shrugged into a shirt.

“
Saofoir.
” Sean took big gulp from his mug and shook his head. His use of the Gaelic alerted Garrett to the depths of his disgust. Perverted indeed.

“Their club headquarters, as they like to call it, is just a cover for a bed-house where perversions abound, ” Sean said. “They claim roots to the old Hellfire Club, without the devil worship. Why?”

“Daniel reports most of the young men up to mischief last night were also recently invited to indulge themselves at the Devil’s Club.”

Sean’s gaze sharpened as he met Garrett’s. “What is the connection?”

“Jameson. Harold Jameson organized both
entertainments
.”

“
Diabhal.
” Sean’s knuckles blanched white as they gripped the mug.

“I can only speculate he derives some pleasure in pandering to the baser side of the young bucks he invites, that he gains power from corrupting them, either for use today or down the road. Which would explain his interest in Stanhope.”

“
Diabhal.
” Sean jumped to his feet and paced away to the window.

“What is it?”

“I have heard rumors of secret meetings far outside Dublin, a rite of passage and an initiation that . . . that involves virgins.”

Garrett’s stomach knotted. “You are not thinking—”

“Jane.” Sean grimaced. His free hand clenched tight.

He looked out the window with unseeing eyes. Worry etched his mouth as he spoke. “We talked to the mother of the maid who was with Miss Fuller the day she disappeared. She was adamant her daughter would not have willingly left the area. Her elder sister was expecting her first child any day. The girl was very excited.”

“That alone does not preclude her from accompanying her mistress if she did indeed elope or run home to England after her father banished her to the country.” Garrett tried to offer a more dispassionate view of the situation as he joined Sean at the window.

Sean glanced over at Garrett and shook his head. “Liam spent some time in the admiral’s kitchen talking to the housekeeper. Seems the first thing the admiral did was send word to all the ports he could reach. There was no sign of either girl. They searched his daughter’s personal effects thoroughly, and there were no missives from any particular beau or evidence anything was missing from her personal effects save the clothes on her back.”

“What led the admiral to focus his concerns on your possible role?”

“Something she wrote in her private journal.” Sean shook his head again. “She must have written something about the incident at the Hamilton’s.”

“Ahh yes, the dousing.” Garrett recalled the belated report Sean had delivered after his meeting with the admiral. The incident apparently had a significant impact on both parties involved. Another Jameson connection. The fellow was turning up far too often with too many aspects of their business of late. “It never ceases to amaze me the amount of information Liam can extract from the kitchens he visits.”

“Broken-down traveler never fails.” Sean agreed. “This time he damaged a curricle axle.”

“Country folk are nothing if not hospitable to those in need.” Garrett agreed. “So if Miss Fuller has not left home of her own accord—”

“She is either dead at this point or trapped in some sort of living hell.” Sean looked back out the window, his tone harsh and grating with whatever guilt haunted him. “I think it is time to visit Jameson and try to pound some truth from him.”

“That may feel good, but also could tip the scale and force him, if he has any connection at all, to drastic action. Daniel appears in place as one of his marks along with Stanhope. We’ll set Seamus to shadow Jameson’s every move from here in case Daniel was observed slipping the priest to us last night.”

Sean scrubbed a hand through his hair. “I cannot just sit here and do nothing.”

Garrett clapped a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “I have something important I need you to handle this day. I cannot be in two places at once.”

Sean took a moment to pull his personal anxiety inside. His ability to focus on the task at hand was one of the many qualities that made him so valuable. When he met Garrett’s gaze he was ready to give his all to whatever was asked of him. “What do you need?”

“I was to meet with Admiral Fuller today, at St. Michan’s.” He pulled a letter sealed with his signet ring from his breast pocket. “He will be told to come to meet at the rear confessionals at noon, during Mass.”

Sean took the letter and weighed it in his hand. “Will be told?”

“Seamus will deliver his instructions giving him an hour to make the meeting. You take the last alcove, he arrives, and you slip him the envelope. Once he has read our price for locating his daughter—”

“Our price? You intend to haggle price with him in return for finding Jane?” If the edge on Sean’s voice sharpened any further Garrett would be flayed.

“If I just accept his terms for the prisoners at Newgate”—he explained, swallowing back any remonstrance about getting involved with someone attached to one of their missions. It would do little good at this point. Sean was already more involved than he even knew—“he may realize how important they are. He thinks of me as the worse kind of fraud.”

“A scoundrel masquerading as a folk hero.” That was the official description the authorities used when posting updates to the growing reward offered for the capture or unmasking of the Green Dragon.

“Exactly. I do not want him to be surprised. Men of his caliber, when surprised, take closer looks. So I am, or rather you are, going to live down to his expectations and demand a handsome reward for locating his daughter. He may sputter, but he will accept.”

“What happens to Jane if he refuses?”

“He won’t.” Faced with the skeptical look Sean shot him, Garrett emphasized his assurance. “He won’t.”

He clapped Sean’s shoulder and strode over to the table where he’d set his mug. “You will be in the deep shadows, with a curtain between you. Take a slouch hat and one of my greatcoats. And the Green Dragon’s ring.”

He pulled the square-cut emerald from his finger and laid it on the table. It rocked for a moment against the dark wood, and the emerald winked in the sunlight. He was passing it to Sean now, as he would one day for good. The
Ard Tiarna
approved his choice for who would succeed him with the Green Dragon’s ring and sword.

“Keep your voice low and flat so he will think it sounds enough like mine to pass. Just as he gets ready to leave, tell him he is to go down the street to Newgate and get those prisoners released as a sign of his good faith. Seamus and Liam will make sure he does not have an escort. Wait until one of them knocks and then exit when the noon Mass is over.”

Sean strode over and picked up the ring, weighing it in his palm for just a moment before sliding it on his finger. “But really. If he stalks out?”

“We will keep looking. That is my other appointment. I am going to talk to the girls Mrs. Fitzgerald is housing at her school.”

Bleak determination flitted across Sean’s eyes. He compressed his lips into a grim line as he twisted the ancient signet onto his finger.

“What was her reaction to the news that not only is your cousin missing, there are others?”

His lips twisted at the thought. He understood all too well how difficult it might be for Sean, feeling his way along the unfamiliar labyrinth of his attraction for Jane Fuller and his duty to their cause. Somehow, Maura brought out a protectiveness in him. He wanted his friend to think well of her. Her concern for her girls was real enough; he could comfortably discuss that with others without revealing their wayward behavior at the end of his visit.

“She promised to do all she could to assist us. She insisted.”

“What did I tell you? Stanhope has excellent taste in women. Beautiful, intelligent, and willing to look out for others. Too bad she is unsuitable to be his countess.”

Garrett knew the baron must be grappling with this very dilemma. Daniel had reported he’d shown up with Jameson for last night’s adventure looking three sheets to the wind, with a wild hopelessness to his actions and a refusal to answer any inquiries regarding the cause.

Had she told him of their visit? Had Stanhope surmised what had nearly happened between his mistress and her guest last night? Things could not have gone well between the lovers if he’d behaved so recklessly.

“She is well-meaning enough. But there is only a slim hope any of the girls currently in her care will have had contact with the Devil’s Club spawn.”

“True. But we will never know if you fail to ask.” Sean sounded better now he did not have a stretch of empty time yawing before him. “So I get Mass and a meeting with a cranky old bastard who would like little better than to arrest you, or me since I’ll be taking your place, while you spend the day with a beautiful woman and a group of schoolgirls.”

Garrett shrugged. “Some of us . . .”

“. . . have all the luck.” Sean finished their old joke. “Do you think he will really be able to set the men he promised free?”

“We will know soon enough. But I have to think that as a truly desperate father, he will do all in his power to live up to his promise. When we get the financial reward, we can donate it to a worthy cause.”

“Perhaps to Mrs. Fitzgerald’s school?” Sean took his turn as quizmaster.

“Aye. Perhaps. She appears to be trying to achieve some good with her life, at least.”

“Aye.” Sean agreed as he turned and headed to the door. “I will fetch hot water from the kitchen or neither of us will be much good this day. Do you mind if I borrow a clean shirt?”

“Have I ever denied you anything?”

Sean favored him with an appreciative wave and was out the door without another word.

Garrett scrubbed his hand across his chin. He at least would need a shave besides washing up. He didn’t want to frighten the Eagan students.

Or Maura.

His thoughts had not been far from Maura Fitzgerald since he strode from her house. Questions plagued him. He’d spent the better part of the night fighting the urge to rush back and pry her from Stanhope’s embrace. Counter to all logic and his oath because his mentor, the Earl of Clancare was counting on him to steer his heir away from such choices, it hadn’t been until after he had learned from Daniel the baron had been among last night’s riders that his tension had eased.

As he and Sean readied for the day ahead, his thoughts and questions cycled. How would Maura react to today’s visit to the draper’s shop? Would she even allow him entrance? Would any good come of it? All would be resolved as soon as he arrived on Hawkins Street, the sooner the better.

But how would she have reacted to his return last night? Would she have allowed him entrance then? And what would have come from such a visit? Could he have, would he have, convinced her his offer on behalf of the earl had nothing to do with his kiss? None of those questions would be easily answered.

Worse still was the knowledge it was not even the questions that plagued him most in connection to Maura Fitzgerald/Eagan. It was the rightness that had accompanied taking her in his arms, the softness of her lips under his and his reaction to her passion when she had finally opened herself to him. Never had a woman haunted him so.

“Well, Garrett?”

He blinked and turned to see Sean—scrubby beard, slouch hat, battered coat, and all. “Your own brother wouldn’t know you.”

“As if the likes of himself would ’ere be caught inside a place such as St. Michan’s.” Sean affected a peasant’s cadence to his speech. “And ye make a fine figure of a man yerself, if ye don’t mind me sayin’ so.”

“
Thus we are arrayed and armed?
”

“Aye,” Sean bowed with a flourish toward the door. “After ye, sir.”