She was left with an overwhelming feeling of loneliness. She
raised a hand to her face and felt it wet with tears again.
The rest were memories from a new and different life, and now
she wondered if the shock of the experience as a small child had wiped the
entire episode from her mind until she had seen Mr. Churchward and started the
painful process of memory.
She frowned. There was one small piece of memory missing, a
shadowy figure who had also been there that night, standing by the carriage in a
waft of veils, a clatter of bracelets and the scent of lily of the valley.
Margery shuddered, blinked. She saw the face of Lady Emily Templemore.
Lady Emily. It seemed impossible, mad. Yet she was certain that
Lady Emily had been involved. She thought of the accidents at Templemore and
Lady Emily’s repeated questions to her from the very first day.
My, what a striking resemblance you bear
to your late grandmama
…
not your mama, she was
tall. Do you recall anything about her?
Lady Emily must have been terrified that she would remember
what had happened. Every day she must have been afraid. Margery rubbed her
temples. They ached fiercely. The only thing that made no sense was why Lady
Emily would have wanted her mother dead. Emily had been illegitimate at birth
and could never have inherited Templemore.
The voices had faded now. There was a silence. Margery waited,
listened. Then she put out a hand, groped for the doorknob and turned it
stealthily.
The door was locked. She felt her hopes sink. She sat back
against the wall, curling her legs up, resting her head against the flaking
plaster of the wall. The scent of dampness and decay was in her nostrils now.
She felt cold.
After a little while she stirred herself and scrubbed the tears
from her cheeks. A tiny flicker of rebellion kindled in her and grew stronger.
She was not going to sit around here waiting for Jem to dispose of her in a sack
in the Thames. He thought he had won. She was going to show him he had not. She
thought of Henry, too, and felt possessed by a fierce, bright determination.
Henry would never let Jem’s blackmail succeed. He would do everything he could
to find her. She felt it, felt such faith and love in him, as strong and
powerful as anything she had felt in her life before. She knew without a shadow
of doubt that it would be enough to bring him to her through the dark.
* * *
“T
HIS
IS
VERY
BAD
,”
Mr.
Churchward said. His hand shook slightly as he read the ransom note. “Very bad
indeed.”
No one was inclined to contradict him. The atmosphere in the
drawing room of Templemore House was bleak. No one believed that Jem Mallon
would release Margery alive even if the earl did as requested and paid the
seventy thousand pounds that Jem was demanding.
It was night, full dark. The curtains were drawn and the
candles lit. Around the table sat Henry, Mr. Churchward, the Earl of Templemore,
Garrick Farne, Alex Grant and Owen Rothbury who, as soon as they had received
Henry’s note, had come to offer their services in the search for Margery.
The first indication that anything was wrong had been the
return that afternoon of the carriage with the groom and coachman badly beaten.
They had told Henry that they had been bringing Margery home from Bedford Square
when they had stopped to pick up Jem Mallon. He had directed the coach away from
Grosvenor Street toward the river on some errand but once they were trapped down
a narrow back street with no escape they had been toppled from the carriage,
clubbed viciously and sent back, reeling and shaken. Of Margery there was no
sign.
Henry knew he would never forget how he had felt then, no
matter how long he lived. Something had fractured inside him. Obligation and
duty fell aside leaving his emotions painfully and dangerously exposed, as they
had been the night at Templemore when Margery had run from him.
Then, he had refused to confront his demons. He had turned away
from love when Margery had offered it to him. He had not even acknowledged in
his own mind that he had loved her on that hot and passionate night when she had
given him her body and her soul.
Instead, he had dismissed what he felt as need, as lust and
passion, and he had run from love because he did not dare open himself to hurt
as fearlessly as Margery had done.
It was late to realize his mistake, but he was not prepared to
accept that it was too late. He would find Margery and he would tell her he
loved her.
Henry had gone out then, down to the river where the carriage
had been ambushed, trying to pick up news, any news, of what might have happened
to Margery and where Jem might have taken her.
Farne and Rothbury and Grant had scoured the town all afternoon
and evening for a word, for a whisper of Margery’s whereabouts, but there had
been none. Henry refused to give up hope, because to do so would be to abandon
Margery and that was impossible, unimaginable, but as time slipped by and there
was no word, he felt the fear for her wedge itself in his blood.
They had called Churchward in to find out if they could draw on
his extensive investigations into Jem Mallon’s business in case it offered any
clues. It read like a list of all the most criminal and disreputable enterprises
in London: illegal clubs, drinking dens and brothels, shops dealing in stolen
goods, gangs running extortion rackets and all manner of other lawbreaking.
“I did try to warn everyone at the time,” Churchward had said
unhappily.
Then the ransom note had arrived, demanding the money and
threatening to kill Margery if Lord Templemore refused to pay or anyone tried to
find her. Shockingly, Lady Emily Templemore had gone into hysterics then,
screaming that it was all her fault, that she had never wanted Margery dead,
only for her to go away before she remembered everything. Lady Emily had sobbed
as she confessed to paying Jem to kidnap Rose Saint-Pierre twenty years
before.
“I didn’t want him to kill her,” she cried, a sodden hiccupping
mass of grief. “I told him I just wanted her to go away, far away, somewhere I
would never see her again. It was for Antoine.” She had clutched at Henry’s
sleeve with desperate fingers. “I loved him. We would meet sometimes at the
Temple of Venus.... I was so afraid he would take Rose back and I would lose
him.” Her hand fell. “I only wanted her to go away,” she said tonelessly. “She
had everything I wanted. It was not fair....”
Henry had seen Lord Templemore shrink in on himself as he
realized the extent of his half sister’s guilt and the wretched grief and misery
that had driven her. The doctor had come to give Lady Emily a sedative and now
she slept, Lady Wardeaux at her bedside, and the earl had downed a stiff brandy
without a word, his knuckles white on the head of his cane, his face withered
and drawn as he relived the loss of his daughter.
“I’ll find Margery,” Henry had said fiercely to the earl. “I
swear it. I’ll find her and bring her back to you.”
He saw the fear in the earl’s eyes then, and the knowledge they
both shared, that Jem would never let Margery go.
“I’m going out again,” Henry said. He caught sight of himself
in the mirror, pale and drawn with exhaustion, filthy from the streets, haunted
with fear for Margery. “I’ll start checking the places on Churchward’s
list.”
“I’ll come with you,” Garrick said at once. Alex and Owen stood
up, too. They gulped down hot coffee and prepared to go out again into the
night. Henry felt each second, each minute, stretching out unbearably. He felt
exhausted, yet intolerably awake and on edge. He would not permit himself, even
for a moment, to think that he might not see Margery again.
The street door opened suddenly and three ladies came in from
the night, sparking with jewels, wrapped in silk.
“Joanna,” Alex Grant said, pausing as he swung his great coat
about his shoulders. “You should not be here.”
“Nonsense, Alex,” Lady Grant said robustly.
“Have you found Margery?” Tess Rothbury demanded.
“No,” Owen said. “Not yet.”
“In that case,” Merryn Farne said, “you need our help.”
“I really don’t think—” Garrick began.
Merryn quelled him with a look. “Garrick, darling,” she said,
“you know that we all care about what happens to Margery. She has been so loyal
to us all in the past that we owe it to her now. Let us help you.”
“All right,” Henry said. He was willing to accept any help if
it meant that they found Margery. “We’re going to divide up all the places
connected to Jem Mallon,” he said, passing Joanna the list. Tess and Merryn
crowded around, looking over her shoulder.
“It’s a long shot,” Henry said, “but it’s the best we can
do.”
Tess was rapidly scanning the list. “This will take days,” she
murmured. “It covers every conceivable illegal activity in London.”
“I know,” Henry said. He felt his heart sink and forced himself
not to lose hope. He took the list back and read it again. His mind felt fuzzy
with tiredness. He felt as though he was missing something important, trying to
make a link that was just beyond his reach.
Mallon is part owner of The Hoop and
Grapes flash house,
he read, in Mr. Churchward’s neat hand. He could
almost feel the lawyer’s disapproval.
He also part funds
the brothel at The Temple of Venus
....
“I know Mrs. Tong at the Temple of Venus,” Tess said suddenly.
“We go back many years. Even if she does not know where Margery is, she might be
able to give us the name of someone who does, or tell us where to find Jem
Mallon.”
“She’d never help you,” Henry said.
Tess smiled sweetly. “Oh, I think she will.”
Garrick looked at Henry, who nodded.
“Let’s go,” he said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The Chariot: Victory. The force of destiny
M
ARGERY
SWIFTLY
REALIZED
that, as she could not
get out the door, the only way was up through the skylight and out onto the
roof. She did not like heights but that was irrelevant since it was a matter of
life and death. She dragged the battered bed beneath the tiny attic window. The
light was fading now and night was coming on. As it was high summer, she
calculated that it must be almost eleven o’clock. If Jem was waiting until full
dark to dispose of her, she did not have much time left.
By standing on the wooden rail at the base of the bed, Margery
was able to reach up to a bar fixed to the ceiling beneath the window. Since
this was a brothel she suspected that it had some sort of sexual purpose because
there were chains hanging down from it.
She did not allow her mind to dwell on the use of either the
bar or the chains and concentrated on them solely as a means of escape. She had
spent many times as a child swinging on the ropes that her brothers had slung
between the trees in the Wantage woods. Chains were no different.
Climbing in a muslin gown and slippers was, however, a lot less
easy than it had been in the hand-me-down trews and boots she had worn as a
child. Soon her slippers fell off and her skirts were in shreds but she reached
the bar on the ceiling and pushed against the dirty skylight.
It did not budge. She pushed harder, clinging to the bar with
one hand and pushing with the other, but she could get little purchase. The
window squeaked and shifted but did not open. She knew she was going to have to
break it.
Far below her—she risked a quick look down and felt a little
queasy—a brass candlestick stood on the dresser. There was nothing for it. She
shimmied down the chains again and they clanked softly together. She grabbed the
candlestick and started back up again, the candlestick tucked into the waist of
her gown. Suddenly, with no warning whatsoever, the chains started to uncoil.
Her weight, small as it was, had obviously operated some sort of long-neglected
mechanism and now it cranked into action. As Margery hung on for dear life, the
chains unrolled and rattled down, faster and faster, depositing her painfully on
the floor. She did not even have time to gather her breath before a hidden
trapdoor opened and she fell straight through.
Gasping, the breath knocked out of her, she lay on the rug in
the room below. There was light and sound. Someone was screaming. Margery opened
her eyes and looked up at an enormous bed where one of Mrs. Tong’s whores was
peering around the large, naked shoulder of the man on top of her and shrieking
fit to burst.
Margery scrambled to her feet. The screaming stopped.
“Oh, it’s you, Margery,” the redhead on the bed said. “Sorry,
didn’t recognize you for a moment.”
The fat peer hauled himself off the girl like a bad-tempered
walrus. “You’re putting me off my stroke,” he said peevishly. “Have you come to
join us?”
“I thank you, but no,” Margery said, averting her eyes. “I’m so
sorry to disturb you, Miss Kitty. Please excuse me.” She edged toward the
door.
“Got any of those marzipan cakes?” Kitty called as the man
climbed back on top of her.
“Not tonight!” Margery shouted. She grabbed a thick braided
whip off the dresser—the perfect weapon—and slipped out the door.
From the landing it sounded as though all hell was breaking out
in the hall below. Margery leaned over the banisters and her knees weakened with
relief at what she saw. She had planned to sneak out by the servants’ entrance,
but she had wondered how she might get past Mrs. Tong’s burly doormen if they
were in the hall.
Now she saw that the problem was solved. In the center of the
tiled hall of the brothel stood Tess Rothbury. She was facing Mrs. Tong and
holding a tiny silver pistol in her hand. On one side of her was Joanna Grant
and on the other was Merryn Farne. At the door a mill was in full swing. Henry
had already laid out one of the doormen with a blow that had him reeling across
the floor. Garrick Farne was dealing with a second. A third stood irresolute
looking from Henry to the pistol in Alex Grant’s hand. Henry turned to him.
“Try,” he invited.
For one long moment Margery allowed herself simply to look at
Henry. His usually immaculate clothes were disheveled, as though he had thrown
them on in a hurry. His chin was dark with stubble and his face gray with
fatigue. He looked like a man on a mission, one who would let nothing stand in
his way. Margery could feel the driving tension in him and the absolute
determination. She drank it in and she loved him for it.
At the sound of the fight in the hall below, all the doors
along the landing had flown open and now customers and girls in various states
of undress had shot out to see what was going on. Peers whom Margery recognized
were hastily pulling on their breeches.
“Good evening, your grace,” Margery said cheerfully as the Duke
of Cumnor hurried past, dragging on his jacket in such a rush that he had both
arms down one sleeve.
“Your servant, Lady Marguerite,” the duke puffed. “Must be
going! If my mama were to hear about this there would be hell to pay.”
“I’ll have the fair-haired one at the back,” Miss Kitty said,
craning over Margery’s shoulder to look at Owen Rothbury. “He looks
luscious.”
“I’d rather have the tall, dark and handsome one,” Miss Martha
said, with a voluptuous shiver, gazing at Henry. “He’s gorgeous and he knows how
to fight dirty.”
“They’re taken, girls,” Margery said.
Mrs. Tong, seeing her henchmen fall, seemed inclined to turn
tail and run, but Joanna and Merryn between them had grabbed her before she
could flee. Tess was speaking in cut-glass tones that carried up to the landing
above.
“Mrs. Tong,” she said, “please do make this easy for yourself.
We believe that Lady Marguerite Saint-Pierre is here, held under duress. We have
come to take her back.”
Mrs. Tong had turned pale under her paint. She gave Tess a
sickly smile. “Why, you’re a one, aren’t you, madam,” she said archly. “Bursting
in here, causing a mill! I don’t know anything about this Lady Marguerite—”
Margery heard Henry swear but Tess simply looked at Mrs. Tong
for a full thirty seconds before she said, “Shall we start again, Mrs. Tong?
Think hard now, before you refuse to help. If you do not release Lady Marguerite
immediately we will search the entire brothel until we find her, and then we
will turn you over to the authorities for your part in kidnap and abduction. I
really do not think you would want that—would you?”
“My, she’s a cool one,” Miss Kitty whispered in Margery’s
ear.
“I know,” Margery said. “I want to be like her when I grow
up.”
She was about to step forward and reveal herself when the
brothel door burst open and Jem came in with a couple of men a few steps behind
him. Immediately the tableau in the hall shifted. One of the men went down to a
punishing right hook from Owen Rothbury. The other turned tail and ran. Henry
drew himself up and looked at Jem.
“You
bastard,
” he said.
Jem had a knife. Margery saw the glint of it in the
candlelight.
“Henry!” she yelled.
Both Henry and Jem looked up instinctively. Quick as a flash,
Margery picked up one of Mrs. Tong’s priapic marble statues and dropped it over
the balcony. It fell like a stone and caught Jem by the shoulder, knocking him
to the floor then shattering into a dozen pieces. Henry pounced on Jem, kicking
the knife away and dragging him to his feet, but only so he could knock him down
again.
“Take him away,” he said to Garrick and Alex. “Just get him out
of my sight before I kill him.”
Margery ran to the top of the staircase. The last time she had
descended it, she had been a lady’s maid and she had crept down to find Henry
waiting for her in the hall below. Now she walked down the center of the red
carpet, in her bare feet and ripped muslin dress, with the whip in one hand, the
candlestick in the other and Mrs. Tong’s girls trailing her like bawdy
bridesmaids.
Suddenly she realized that it did not matter who she was,
Margery Mallon or Lady Marguerite Saint-Pierre; to Mrs. Tong’s girls she had
always been the maid who had brought them delicious marzipan treats. To Joanna
and Tess, and the other scandalous ladies she had worked for, she had been a
loyal friend and far more than a servant, and now they had repaid that loyalty
by coming for her when she needed them.
“Thank you for the rescue party,” she said, a little
breathlessly as she reached the bottom step. “I do appreciate it very much.”
Mrs. Tong’s face had convulsed with fury. “How the devil did
you get out?”
“I swung on the manacles in the ceiling and fell through the
trapdoor into Miss Kitty’s chamber,” Margery said serenely. She heard Owen
Rothbury give a splutter of laughter.
“Tess evidently taught you well,” he said.
Then Henry was there, striding through the crowd, dragging her
into his arms. Henry as Margery had never seen him before, cool reserve
shattered, his eyes blazing dark, shaking as he pulled her to him and kissed her
in front of everyone.
“I thought I had lost you,” he said against her hair, and his
voice was so hoarse she barely recognized it. “Margery…” He kissed her again,
with raw desperation and need. Margery could feel him shaking, pouring out all
that he felt, the yearning and the promise.
“I love you,” he said, when he released her. “I love you so
much.”
“Oh!” Margery said. Her heart felt as though it was going to
burst with happiness. “Henry. I have so wanted to hear you say that.”
She returned his kiss in full measure before she drew back and
cupped his cheek in one loving hand. She saw his eyes close at her touch and
heard him sigh.
“We have an audience,” she whispered.
Henry smiled down into her eyes. “I don’t mind,” he said. His
voice was rough with emotion. “I want everyone to know I love you. It’s about
time I admitted it.”
And he kissed her again.
* * *
H
ENRY
STOOD
ON
THE
TERRACE
below
Margery’s bedroom window at Templemore House. Light was starting to filter
across the eastern sky in radiant pink and blue. It was going to be another
beautiful summer day.
Henry had not slept. They had taken Margery back to Templemore
House where she had thrown herself into her grandfather’s arms and cried and
clung to him, and Lord Templemore had looked close to tears himself. He had
shaken Henry’s hand with speechless gratitude and then given Henry a fierce hug,
too, while Lady Wardeaux clucked with shock.
“Hugging!” she complained. “Such bad ton!”
“It’s a special occasion,” Henry said.
There had been no opportunity for Henry and Margery to speak,
because Chessie and Lady Wardeaux had carried Margery off to have a bath and
sleep. Eventually the uproar in the house had subsided. Barnard had shepherded
the servants off to their beds and Lord Templemore had retired.
Henry was pouring himself a brandy in the library when he heard
Margery’s voice calling to him from outside.
He walked out onto the terrace and looked up. Margery was
leaning over her balcony, small and ethereal in a transparent white nightgown,
her long golden-brown hair tumbled about her shoulders.
“At last!” she said. “I thought you would never hear me.” She
smiled. “Are you coming up?”
“Certainly not,” Henry said, trying to drag his gaze away from
the nightgown and the way that the candlelight from the room behind illuminated
it in the most intriguing places. “You should be resting. You have had an
ordeal.”
“I know,” Margery said. “That is why I simply cannot be left
alone.” She leaned over a little farther. The nightgown slid from one round
shoulder and dipped to reveal the hollow between her breasts. Henry swallowed
hard.
“Please, Henry,” Margery said. “You would not want me to be
frightened.”
“Minx,” Henry said. He eyed the ivy that cascaded down the
wall. He had not climbed it for about twenty years and he had been a great deal
lighter then. He set his foot to the first thick branch. The entire structure
shivered.
“Did I ever tell you that I am scared of heights?” he asked
grimly, gritting his teeth and pushing away thoughts of falling and being found
sprawled on the terrace with several broken bones.
“I am sure you can do it for me,” Margery said, leaning over
farther so that the fine lace of the nightgown pulled tightly across her breasts
and almost caused him to lose his footing completely.
“Thank goodness,” she added, as he reached the stone balcony
and hauled himself over, breathing hard. “I have been so lonely and afraid here
on my own.”
She put her arms about him and pressed close, so that Henry
could feel every soft curve of her squashed against him.
He could also smell brandy. He caught her by the upper arms and
held her away from him. “You’re foxed.”
Margery beamed at him. Her gray eyes were slumberous. She felt
deliciously warm and yielding beneath his hands.
“They gave me brandy,” she said. “Chessie gave me some and then
your mother gave me some and then Edith brought me some more…” The other
shoulder of her nightgown slid down and her head drooped a little like a cut
flower. “I do confess to feeling a little sleepy,” she confided. “Perhaps you
could put me to bed now.”
Put me to bed.
Dear God. If ever a
man was offered the precise opportunity he craved…
Henry scooped Margery up in his arms and carried her back
inside her bedroom, sliding her beneath the turned-back bedclothes and pulling
them up respectably all the way to her neck. There was no possible way, he told
himself severely, that he was going to make love to a woman who was half-drunk
and half-asleep, who had suffered a terrifying ordeal and needed to rest.
Despite the tormented ache of his body, which was almost enough to drive him to
perdition, he would act the gentleman and leave her to sleep. He turned away and
tiptoed toward the door.