Jenna Petersen - [Lady Spies] (5 page)

E
mily stepped inside the stifling club and wrinkled her nose in utter disgust. The air was heavy and filled with the pungent combination of sweat, fear, and desperation.

Why had Grant been coming here in the last few weeks? That was what she hoped to determine with her visit. Though when she looked over the rough crowd, a thin sheen of sweat broke out on her brow at the thought she’d have to ask questions of them.

She shoved her nervousness aside. This was her duty. And she had done it dozens of times before without hesitation or fear. It was an important step of any investigation, so she had to forget her emotions and think of Grant’s safety. For all she knew, he might be here right now.

She sighed as she forced herself to move into the crowd. Even if he was, she had no worry he or anyone else would recognize her. In the carriage she had gone through the motions of disguising herself just as she had a hundred other times. Tonight she wore a ragged gown, faded by many washings and torn and patched a dozen times over. It was a far cry from the sparkling ball gown she had donned earlier that night.

She had smoothed her blond hair tightly against her head, taming every loose strand with vicious care, and then pinned a curly red wig in place on top of it. The bright color was so bold that most people would look at the hair and never get to her face.

Those that had any desire to look at the face would likely have their gazes drawn instead to the bosom of her gown. She had pushed and pulled and plumped her breasts as high as they could go. With the low slope of her bodice, she felt safe no one would recognize her. She looked like another of a hundred painted women who trolled the hells for men on hard times. Those men looked for luck in the form of a woman, or a chance to drown bad luck in the flesh. Emily wouldn’t take any of those offers, of course, but the costume would do its duty.

She would fade into the drunken crowd, giving her ample opportunity to search for Grant and carefully question the patrons about his activities at The Blue Pony.

And if she didn’t, then the knife she had attached to her thigh would do
its
duty, instead.

She shivered as she looked around at the pale, wild-eyed men around her, the smirking faces of the winners, the frantic terror of the losers…she couldn’t picture collected Grant in either category.

She didn’t want to.

Rising to the toes of her worn slippers, she let her gaze drift over the room. She started at a harsh cry and looked to the corner where the sound came from. Two men were in a loud argument, shoving each other as their companions tried to hold them back.

As she focused on slowing her suddenly throbbing heart, she continued to examine her surroundings and found a lady painted even more brightly than herself. She was providing luck to a pale gentleman who was shaking so hard that his cards bounced, but when he wasn’t looking, the girl was taking money from his pockets.

Emily turned to her left, back toward the main entrance, and stumbled as she dodged the jostle of a few men who were just as likely to be trying to steal trinkets from her pockets as accidentally bumping into her.

As she sidestepped them, she froze and all her fears faded for a brief moment. There he was. Grant Ashbury stood just inside the entrance, like the sun in the middle of a dark and dangerous night. He was a head taller than most of the men around him, his greatcoat straining as he flexed his broad shoulders back. His dark eyes scanned the room with military precision, taking in each and every detail as he searched the faces of those around him. There was something about his expression. Something dark and dangerous.

Emily’s heart sank. She realized now that she had hoped her information was wrong. Somewhere deep inside, she hadn’t wanted for Grant to be spending time in this hole of loss and ruin.

She shook her head. No. She wouldn’t let her foolish emotions rule her reactions or her investigation. Grant was here now. Instead of being pained at his appearance, she should be happy. After all, it gave her the perfect opportunity to observe his behavior and protect him.

She watched him, observing the focused intent that was clear in every line of his body. He was looking for someone. But who? A gambling partner? A criminal?

Perhaps a woman, though that thought made her stomach clench unpleasantly.

And then, that dark stare fell on her. Emily swallowed hard as she fought for a flirtatious expression. One that would not reveal the truth about her identity. One that would shore up her role as a fancy lady searching for her next mark.

His eyes held on her a moment longer than they had on anyone else. But just as her racing heart threatened to explode from her chest, he broke the gaze without any hint of recognition and looked to the next face in the crowd. Emily expelled a breath she hadn’t even realized she’d been holding as every tense muscle in her body finally relaxed. He hadn’t realized it was she.

It was good, and yet she was somehow…disappointed.

“Ridiculous,” she muttered as she yanked the trailing hem of her gown out from under a drunken man’s heel.

Why in the world
would
Grant recognize her? They had no special connection, despite their recent encounters. And she was a master at disguise. That was the one part of her training she didn’t question. No one, not even Ana and Meredith, recognized her when she didn’t wish to be known. Why would she think Grant, who was nothing more than a spoiled earl who had taken some passing interest in her, would be better at uncovering the truth than two trained agents of the Crown?

She looked up from her soiled gown, expecting to see Grant moving into the milling crowd or finding a table to sit at and gamble. Instead, he was gone.

Emily rushed forward in shock, glancing from corner to corner. How could he have vanished so quickly? He was right at the door and then…gone! Panic gripped her as she pushed people out of the way to get to a clearer area, a place where she might inspect the crowd with greater ease.

What kind of spy was she that she would lose her target so quickly? Especially a man like Grant Ashbury, who stood out from the crowd? She wanted to scream at her own stupidity for not watching him more closely.

She craned her neck as her eyes darted about the room. Just as she was going to give up, she caught sight of him, moving out of the main area into a hallway that led to the many back rooms in The Blue Pony. Her heart lurched. Everyone knew the blackest dealings took place in those corridors. People had been attacked there. They’d lost their fortunes. Lost their lives.

The gripping terror that had frozen her upon her entry into the hell faded and she elbowed her way forward, pushing gamblers aside, ignoring the protests of a lightskirt when Emily moved between her and her man for the night. She hardly heard the disgusting leers of the gentlemen looking for their own night of pleasure. Her only focus was getting to Grant, keeping him from any harm he might inadvertently find.

Finally, she reached the hallway Grant had disappeared into. Breaking free of the crowd, she rushed into the darkened passageway.

She had to hold back a wail of frustration. He had disappeared a second time. The hallways twisted and turned, barely lit by a few flickering lanterns mounted crudely on the walls. While she was struggling to make her way through the main room, Grant had vanished. He could have gone into any doorway. Gone up the stairs in the back of the hall. Turned a corner and found a thousand different kinds of danger and death.

Nausea washed over Emily. She was failing.

No.
No!
She wouldn’t give up. She had to find Grant and that meant searching the rooms. She stepped into the darkness, checking every corner and doorway for danger, then leaned down to press an ear against the first entryway, hoping to hear Grant’s seductive voice. Even if she heard him whispering to some whore it would mean he was safe. That whoever was threatening him hadn’t found him tonight and taken his life before she could uncover the nature of their threats.

But there was no Grant behind the door. Or the next, or the next. Down the hall she went, struggling to hear any signs of him, any hint of a fight. Each time she stopped, her anxieties about her own safety faded a fraction, moving to the background. She almost felt her old self again, with the panic that had been her constant companion for six months temporarily quelled.

At the end of the hallway, she had two choices. She could turn right toward another passage with multiple doors. Or left, which would take her down a shorter hallway to one door.

“Ease first,” she whispered as she crept toward the solitary door on the left. As she moved closer, she realized a shaft of light from within was piercing the darkness of the hallway and voices were echoing from inside, hushed and hard to understand.

She moved closer, taking care to remain silent. Her intuition was going mad. Crouching, she peered through a small crack that kept the door from being completely shut.

There were three men in the room. One was seated, his back to the doorway. One stood near the seated man, fussing over him in some way Emily couldn’t make out clearly due to the small area she had to view the scene. It looked like he was…
feeding
him, perhaps, even though that hypothesis made no sense.

The other man stood by the fireplace. Emily recognized him instantly. Cullen Leary, an Irish prizefighter who had long ago turned mercenary. He worked for whoever paid him the highest and was well known for the pleasure he took in cruelty and death. He might well be the most dangerous criminal on the London streets.

She froze at the sight of him and the fear rushed back in an instant. Before this, she’d only seen the man in crudely drawn sketches. But he was even more terrifying in person.

He was at least as tall as Grant, but even bigger. Where Grant was lean and athletic, Leary was a bulk of a man with rolls of muscle and fat seemingly everywhere. And the scar that slashed across his face starting from below his right eye, arching over the bridge of his nose and ending at the left corner of his lip, spoke volumes about the violence the man courted and reveled in. No one was quite certain how he had gotten that scar, but every theory was more dangerous and horrifying than the next.

Emily felt a powerful urge to run. Forget her training, ignore her instincts and just flee to safety. But she gripped her hands into fists at her sides and battled through the fear. Something was going on here and it was her duty to determine what it was.

With effort, she leaned closer. What the hell was Leary doing here? His crimes and connections were infamous, he was sought by authorities of all kinds, so he rarely showed his face in public. Yet here he was, at The Blue Pony, leaning back against a worn fireplace mantel like he was king of the underground.

She held her breath, shoving her emotions aside as she lifted one trembling hand to gently push the door open just a hair more. She needed to see who the other two men were to get a better picture of what Leary was up to, because every instinct she possessed told her she had stumbled upon something much bigger than the threats against Grant. A
real
case, not just something easy to keep her occupied because her friends believed her incapable.

After she shot a final wary glance at Leary, she took in the other men. The one standing wasn’t feeding the third after all. He was applying makeup of some kind. Her muscles tensed as she watched. The act seemed so familiar, but she couldn’t yet understand what it meant.

Finally, the man who was seated got to his feet and slowly turned. Emily jolted back, covering her mouth to keep a gasp from escaping her lips. His face looked exactly like the Prince Regent’s. If not for his smaller build, she would have thought him to be the very man.

The one assisting the false Prince slung a bulky suit of some kind over his arms and began to lace it in the back. A suit to make the imposter appear heavy and soft like George IV was. Under clothing, it would be the perfect disguise. And suddenly everything clicked in Emily’s mind.

She had unwittingly uncovered a plot against the Regent.

“Hey!”

Leary straightened up from the mantel and threw the tumbler in his hand right at the door toward her. Emily barely dove out of the way as glass smashed into the wall behind her, sending shards of cheap crystal raining down over her.

She couldn’t help but scream. Her body froze, her training forgotten as she flashed back to the explosion of the gun that had cut her down half a year ago.

Then Leary’s harsh voice echoed through her fog, “The whore! She seen! Get her!”

Emily fought the urge to curl into a ball. She had to run. Rolling from her crouched position on the floor, she shoved to her feet and bolted down the hall.

Grant took a swig of the cheap whiskey that had been poured for him and swore. The taste was bad enough, but it was his frustration that truly caused the curse.

He
knew
the carriage that had pulled away from The Blue Pony was Emily’s. He was certain of it! Yet he had searched the entire establishment from cellar to top floor and found no trace of her. He’d even gone so far as to ask a few of his more trusted contacts around the hall, but none had seen a woman matching her description.

So where had she gone? Had she departed her carriage at another destination when Grant and his driver lost her momentarily in the streets? Had she not gone into The Blue Pony at all, but another of the worn-down buildings nearby?

There was no way to know. All he could do was sit here in the main room of the hell, drinking bad whiskey like a damn fool. He got to his feet and tossed a few coins on the bar before he turned toward the door. There was no use staying any longer. Emily wasn’t here. He would have to regroup and go back to her home to see if she’d returned. Later he could figure out where the hell she had gone.

He moved all of two steps toward the door when a woman burst from the back hallway and darted through the thinning crowd in an amazing show of agility and athleticism. Grant took a step toward her on instinct, watching as she peered over her shoulder. He tracked her line of vision to see two men come barreling out of the hallway behind her, shouting curses and waving their hands.