Rogue in Red Velvet (10 page)

“Yes, my lord.”

Alex raced from the room and took the stairs two at a time, shouting for his valet and butler. He gave terse instructions to Grayson and ordered Wentworth to find him something plainer. “I want to look unremarkable.”

“My lord.” The valet raised a brow but complied.

Soon Alex emerged in a plain brown coat and russet waistcoat. A little fine but people of all classes used the
Belle Sauvage
. And a useful array of weapons about his person. Grayson had a chair waiting for him.

Alex climbed in and ordered the chairmen to run. They covered the distance in excellent time, so he gave them considerably extra. They touched their caps and said, “My lord.”

He hoped nobody overheard. Passing as an ordinary, though wealthy citizen would get him faster answers here. He strode into the inn and called for the landlord. He used enough arrogance that the landlord appeared in good order, wiping his hands on his apron. He was in a beer-stained waistcoat and shirt only, even with this chill in the air, demonstrating how busy he’d been this morning.

“My relative, Mrs. Rattigan. Is she here? I must apologize to her for my tardiness, but I assume you made her comfortable while she waited for me.” He had to raise his voice to get over the raucous atmosphere of the inn. People yelled for custom, for attention, for an ostler.

The landlord frowned. “We ain’t got nobody of that name here.”

“She’d have arrived on the stage from the north, earlier.” He tapped his foot on the scrubbed boards. “Come, man, I don’t want her to wait any further.”

A few passers-by cast them curious looks, but none seemed particularly interested. Just in case, Alex repeated the name. “Mrs. Constance Rattigan. She is surely here.”

Nobody showed any special interest or came forward.

“I’ll check in the book, sir.”

The landlord was back with the waybook in a few minutes. He glanced down today’s manifest. “The carriage arrived, sure enough sir, and her luggage was unloaded.” He balanced the large book expertly in one big hand. “It’s not here now. She’s gone, sir. Did you send someone to collect her, perchance?”

Alex slipped the landlord a few coins and asked him about the man who had come for the lady who owned the luggage. “If I don’t find her my mother will be more than angry.” He gave a mock wince.

The landlord grinned, displaying a few yellowed and crooked teeth. A very few. “Well then, sir, here’s all I know.” Oh yes, he’d been waiting for that vail. “A man came for her. He gave her a note and she went with him fast enough. She had a private parlor and I furnished a bottle of wine and some bread. She seemed a bit—tired, if you get my meaning when she left.” The man came close to winking. “Imbibed a bit.”

Alex’s fury nearly choked him. Not drunk but drugged. And the landlord would have hidden that information from him for the sake of a few coins. He had to keep in control of himself or he’d learn nothing more. “Is the parlor still free?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then show me.”

The man led the way, dropping his book off at the desk on his way past. The inn seethed with humanity, everyone bringing their smells and noise with them. The rumbling noise of the great coaches reverberated through the building at regular intervals. Vehicles arrived, disgorging their passengers or picking them up. Yells came from outside, as people called for their luggage and servants or greeted relatives. Alex walked past it all.

As he passed through the main room, one group seemed to be leaving and another arriving, so the effect was rather like the tide coming in and going out again. He battled his way through, gathering a few curses and keeping his hand on his purse as he followed the landlord to the private parlor.

It was a small room with hard wooden benches and a dark table, with the stains of hard use. A plain decanter stood on the scarred table, empty but not clean. Some residue remained. Alex removed the stopper and sniffed it, and detected a tang, chemical, oily, he couldn’t quite identify it. Ah yes, now he had it. His mother used to use the substance for headaches.

He handed it to the landlord. “What do you make of this?”

The landlord sniffed the stopper. “It’s off, sir. Doesn’t smell like my house wine.” Deep creases furrowed between his thick brows. “What’s all this about?”

He would tell the man what he expected to know and what would evoke the landlord’s sympathy. “My cousin is a considerable heiress. I’m afraid that someone has abducted her.”

“You don’t say.” The landlord stared at Alex, blank-faced.

Alex shoved the decanter under the man’s nose. “Just smell this. That isn’t off, it’s had something added to it. Mrs. Rattigan was drugged. This reeks of laudanum.”

The landlord of one of the most prosperous coaching establishments in London wouldn’t bother to get himself involved with an abduction plot. Not now the practice was illegal.

He slipped his hand in his pocket, around the butt of his pistol. “I want to find my cousin before nightfall.” He kept a grip on the decanter with his left hand.

The landlord stood in front of the door, hands on his substantial hips. His rolled-up shirtsleeves displayed impressive roped muscles. “How do I know it’s not you who’s the abductor?”

“How do I know it’s not you?” That would ginger him up a bit. “I won’t give up until I find everyone who is behind this.”

Finding the drugged wine gave him hope, because it meant she’d left here alive. If they wanted to kill her, they’d have poisoned her outright. With only the decanter as slender evidence, he had no case in law. He couldn’t go to the authorities yet. He needed more information.

The landlord studied him for a moment, dark eyes thoughtful. “All right. Wait here, sir. I’ll ask the servants if they saw anything else.”

Alex examined the room in the ten minutes the landlord was gone, scrutinizing the sparse furniture and the floor but he found nothing else. Not even a button.

The landlord returned, closing the door carefully behind him. Alex kept hold of his gun. “I didn’t see the lady leave, sir, I just found the parlor empty and all the wine gone, so I assumed she’d drunk the wine and the man had taken her quietly home.”

If the man had adulterated the wine, he probably dumped the remaining contents, probably out of the window. “Go on.”

“One of the kitchen staff saw a man carrying a woman out a side entrance and into a hackney. He winked at her and said his wife was drunk and my maid thought nothing more of it.”

Oh God.
Bile rose in Alex’s throat. But a hackney meant local. He released his pistol to find his purse. He thrust a few more guineas at the landlord. “Did she recognize the hackney driver?”

“No, sir.”

“If you see him, send word. I’ll take the decanter with me and keep it safe.” He wouldn’t let the only evidence he had out of his possession.

Not bothering about disguising his identity any longer, he reached inside his coat for his case and gave the landlord one of his cards. “Don’t tell anyone about my visit. If I can use the element of surprise, I have a better chance of trapping him and of finding the lady. That is, make no mistake, my first priority. Contact me if you hear anything, no matter how trivial.”

The landlord nodded. “I will indeed, my lord. I don’t want that kind of reputation around this house. I’ve already tried to scare away the women who meet country girls off the stage. You know the ones. They just go further up the street but at least I’m trying to stop them. That’s more than the landlord at the
White Hart
does.” He shoved a finger under the edge of his wig and scratched his skull.

Alex resisted the impulse to step back. Who knew what lurked under that wig? “Besides, the magistrates are making things difficult for the doxies. Probably about time.”

Alex marked the information in his mind. He might find allies there, if he needed them. He would take anything from anyone right now if he found Connie alive and unharmed at the end of it.

Leaving the inn, Alex hailed a passing chair, ruthlessly shouldering another man aside to reach it first and ignoring the yells and curses that followed them.

Jasper Dankworth lived in a lodging house in Red Lion Square. Not the most fashionable address but handy for the main centers of interest for the fashionable world. Alex raced up the steps and a Superior Being opened the door.

“Is Mr. Dankworth available?”

The servant had lifted his chin so high he was forced to stare down his nose at Alex, even though Alex had a few inches on him. “No, sir. I believe you may find him at White’s club.”

Alex smiled grimly. White’s was very selective about who they allowed in, so if he’d been dunning Dankworth, he’d just been sent to the rightabout.

He reached into his purse and jingled it, hoping this man belonged to the house rather than to the man. “When do you expect him back?”

“I really couldn’t say, sir.”

Alex withdrew a guinea and regarded it soulfully. “Do you know where he spends his evenings?”

The man’s rheumy gaze wandered to the bright gold. “At balls and various establishments, sir.”

“Tonight?” He would track him down wherever he was. He had no time to spare for niceties. He withdrew two more coins. A damned fortune to this fellow but well worth the investment.

“I believe he is attending an establishment in Covent Garden, sir.”

Sadly, the man couldn’t say which one but that narrowed Alex’s quarry down nicely. Adding another coin to pay for the man’s silence, Alex handed over the goods and went home to regroup.

He barely waited for the footman to open the door, ran straight through and barreled up the stairs. “Wentworth!”

His valet, good man, came immediately to his call.

“I need something fancy. I’m off to White’s. And be snappy, please. No, I don’t care what it is, just choose something suitable.”

Alex handed over the decanter. “And see this is taken care of. Lock it away just as it is, dregs and all. It could be evidence.”

The valet stared at the cheap container then placed it on a side table within his sight, where it looked incongruous against the finely cut, sparkling crystal. “I will attend to you first sir, then the item.”

Wentworth arrayed Alex in dark green dull satin, with a cream waistcoat and Méchlin lace at his wrists. He added a sapphire stud to his neckcloth, his large gold and emerald signet ring to his finger, popped a watch and a snuffbox in his pockets, and changed his plain street sword for the fine jeweled steel one.

Alex intended to use it if he had to. He grabbed a cocked hat trimmed with gold braid. He would do.

* * * *

White’s was full. Nothing daunted, Alex strode through the public rooms in search of his quarry. He even ventured into Hell, were several fellows hailed him and asked him to join them. Considering how well he could cheat, a skill he deployed as a party trick, they must be desperate. Although he’d never done it when there was money on the table. He’d do it now, if it meant he could discover Connie’s whereabouts. That was a measure of his desperation.

But he showed none of his agitation, none of the worry that was screwing his gut into a tiny knot. Instead, he strolled through the rooms, exchanging the time of day but not stopping, until he reached the inner sanctum.

There he was, in one of the leather-upholstered wing chairs scattered in an informal arrangement through the room. By each chair, stood a small table and the one by Dankworth’s sported a decanter of brandy. Alex generally preferred to leave his spirit drinking until later in the day but each to his own. Even if he’d rather shove the decanter, stopper and all, down the bastard’s throat. He had no proof, no absolute proof but every instinct in his body told him he was right and Dankworth was responsible for the abduction of Connie Rattigan.

Dankworth brightened and stood to greet him. But he wasn’t alone, so Alex couldn’t grab his neckcloth and strangle him with it. Instead he performed a languid bow and let his lids droop over his eyes, although he couldn’t respond to Dankworth’s “Good to see you, Ripley!” with a similar response.

He managed to force a smile. “You’re up early, Dankworth.”

“I am, indeed. Or rather, I haven’t been to bed yet. I cannot imagine what I did before I came to London.”

Dankworth waved to a nearby chair and a waiter brought it over to join the little cluster around Dankworth.

Alex greeted the other men, all gamblers and rousters, although of the highest rank, which meant they had money to burn, and took his seat.

Alex knew better than to wade in with his demands. It was hardly likely that the man would admit to the atrocities without compunction. The best he could hope for was some clue regarding her whereabouts. “Been around town since I saw you last, Dankworth? I saw you at Lady Roxborough’s last week, didn’t I?”

“You did,” Dankworth replied. “The lady was kind enough to invite my betrothed and myself.”

“Ah yes,” Alex took the hook Dankworth dangled in front of him. “I understood you were engaged to someone else? Mrs. Rattigan, the pretty widow?”

Dankworth shrugged. “The match was suggested by my uncle. But we decided we did not suit. I fell in love with Louisa the first time I saw her.”

“Do you plan a long engagement?”