The Blue Devil (The Regency Matchmaker Series) (25 page)

SEVERAL TIMES OVER the next hour, Nigel heard stealthy feet approach from behind, but always they stopped once they closed to a certain distance. He was well known amongst London’s poor. Cutpurses and thieves knew better than to accost the man who was famous for arguing for equal treatment under the law. If Nigel were harmed, the one who had done the deed would be found dead come morning. The fog enveloped Nigel, and he knew he was safe, though part of him wished he were not. He wished someone would cut his throat, for he knew where his duty lay.

For the first time in his life, Nigel was considering putting that duty aside.

His beloved was a traitor to her country. He had ignored all the evidence: Jeremy’s inability to ferret out any details of her past, the unusual timing of her arrival at the school, her apparent searching of the house as reported by Jane. Then there were the people in that other carriage, who seemed to recognize her. And always she seemed to be listening and watching—openly when she could and covertly when she could not. He should have suspected her from the beginning, but he had let his feelings for her get in the way of his duty.

Kathryn. A beautiful, strong name for a strong, beautiful woman. A good woman. A woman who bloody well cared for children and servants and stray cats! How could she be working for the French? During his years in service to his country, Nigel had run into his share of evil men and women. But on every one of Nigel’s missions, he had been acutely aware that many of the people he was trying to outsmart, outrun, or even kill were people who, like him, passionately believed in the rightness of what they were doing.

Kathryn must be one of those.

She must, like him, be risking her life for her country and her people. But he couldn’t let her motives, no matter how pure, influence his decisions.

If he did not capture Kathryn, then he was betraying England. And yet if he did capture her, he was betraying his heart. He staggered suddenly, as though a great weight had been thrust on him. Something had to be done. She might be in possession of the war plans! He had clearly heard her accomplice ask, “Where is the book?” Nigel could not let the plans cross the Channel. Even if England somehow miraculously won the resulting battle, thousands would die. And if England did not win . . .

AN HOUR LATER, Kathryn was still trembling. She had not heard Monsieur Revelet—or whatever his name really was!—leave the house. Not daring to light a candle, she crept to the window at the end of the hall and peered down at the drive. She could not see his gig, but she had hardly expected to. He would not advertise his presence so openly. He was not supposed to be there at night. How had he got inside? Had someone at the school let him in? Another accomplice, perhaps?

She dared not call for help. Revelet had said he would hurt her, hurt those she loved! He’d let her go. She was safe, now. He wanted something more important than her. A book. He wanted some book.

From her pocket, she drew forth
The Corsair
and examined it closely. She’d thought she might swoon for real this time sitting right in front of O’Flaugherty with the very thing he sought in her pocket. She looked at it now in the gloom of the hall. It looked like any other book, but it couldn’t be.

Acting on a hunch, she ducked into a closet and, stuffing a cleaning towel under the door to conceal light, risked lighting a candle and tore open the frontispiece and then the cover. She gasped as a thin sheaf of papers, concealed within the spine of the book, fell into her hand. All had writing on them. Sheltering in the closet, she struggled to read by the dim light of the single candle. The scrawls had been made tiny to conserve space, but Kathryn could see one of the papers had several maps drawn on it, maps of various places in France and Spain. The last paper she looked at shocked her. At first glance, it appeared to be a letter. It was hard to make out, for the lines had been crossed and recrossed, but as she laboriously picked out the words, she recognized many parts of the letter as strings of words the dancing master had spoken as he had told her his strange tale.

“Monsieur Revelet” was not French, and he was not a dancing master. Kathryn realized with a cold certainty that the man with the Irish brogue and steely eyes was a spy for the French, while Madame Briand—and perhaps others at the school—were his accomplices.

Bells in heaven! Baroness Marchman’s School for Young Ladies was their medium of passing their treacherous secrets!

What should she do? She thought of going to Lady Agnes or Mary Gant. But would they believe her? She had to admit that, in their place, she would have found such a wild story hard to believe from a mere schoolgirl—especially a schoolgirl
in her condition
, who had already been suffering the vapors. Besides, how did she know she could trust them? Anyone at the school might be involved. Even sweet old Agnes Marchman or gamine Mary Gant.

Anyone.

The ruined book lay on the floor in front of her. Kathryn stared at it. What if one of the traitors found she had it? Would that person kill her? She was certain “Monsieur Revelet” would not hesitate to do so.

And what would happen to England if the military secrets the book had contained passed into the wrong hands? Taking up the book, Kathryn crept to her room, made sure Jane was asleep, and fed the book to the fire. Then she folded the papers carefully and cast about for a hiding place, settling upon the lining of the drapery.

There was no way to contact Auntie, at least not until she saw Nigel again and contrived to be alone with Thomas and—

Nigel! Of course! He had promised Jane he would come to see her on the morrow. Kathryn had only to wait until then. She would tell him what she had found. He would believe her. He was a military man and a member of Parliament. He would know how to proceed.

THE COLD AND the damp drove Nigel home a little before dawn. By the time the sun had burned off the fog, he was in front of a roaring fire, getting roaring drunk.

Nigel knew what he must do, but he remained motionless, staring into the fire. He had to have absolute proof.

Morgan, Nigel’s elderly butler, stood at the door of the library in Berkeley Square, watching his master. The old man had instructed the rest of the servants to find work that needed their urgent attention elsewhere, but Morgan himself stayed close by. Never, since Blackshire’s poor mother had died, had the young man allowed himself to lose control like this.

An empty bottle of brandy flew through the air and smashed against the wall over the hearth. His master called for another bottle, but Morgan did not answer him. No one would answer. Instead, the old butler just stood there, keeping his silent, watchful vigil.

After a time, Morgan heard the boy take in a deep, shaky breath. “It was my birthday,” his master keened.

Morgan left the room and closed the door behind him. Every one of the servants was aware of the terrible misfortune that had befallen their young master so many years ago. They all knew how his heart ached every year on his birthday, and they all felt sorry, but they tried never to show any sympathy, for they knew their master hated to be pitied.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

T
HE THAMES TEEMED
with launches of people going to Vauxhall Gardens for the evening. Kathryn was surrounded by a boatload of laughing, chattering schoolgirls, excited by the surprise outing on which the Marquis of Blackshire was taking them. He hadn’t come to visit Jane as he’d said he would, but he was treating the entire school—even the servants—to a night of feasting and music and fireworks at the pleasure garden. Yet pleasure was the last thing Kathryn was feeling. She was terribly frightened, and she had never felt more alone in her life. An entire day had passed with not one word, written or spoken, from Nigel.

And he was supposed to have accompanied them to Vauxhall, but at the last moment, Lady Marchman had received word that his arrival would be delayed. He would join them there later, he said; they were to proceed without him.

An image of Nigel’s handsome face swept through her mind and she shivered. She clung to the image and allowed it to linger, hoping it would help her keep her growing panic at bay. Lady Marchman and Mary Gant were busy settling the girls in the Vauxhall supper boxes, and Kathryn took the opportunity to jostle herself to the back of the line.

She craned her neck, hoping to catch sight of him, while in her mind the image of him did not rest. In her imagination, his hauntingly intelligent black eyes swung back and forth. He was looking for something. He was looking for—

Her heart skipped a beat as she realize she was not imagining him, she was remembering him. Remembering how he’d looked in the library, as she’d peered at him through the window. He’d been searching for something.

A thought stabbed her. What if the papers Madame Briand deposited there had been meant for Nigel to find?

Kathryn sat quivering, the memory of Nigel’s eyes casting about the library frightening her. She wrapped her arms about herself. What else could he have been looking for, if not those papers? He’d lied and said he was going back to Berkeley Square, but there he was, casting about the library.

And there had been other strange occurrences since she arrived at the school, many involving Blackshire. First, there had been Lady Jane’s unusual placement in the school in the middle of the term. Then Blackshire’s admonishment to Jane that she was at the school to observe and report anything unusual back to him. Most damning of all, it seemed to Kathryn, were the words he’d spoken last night. “
I have done things I am not proud of
,” he’d said.

She stood in line, thinking furiously, putting isolated facts together. And the more she thought, the worse the evidence seemed. Evidence that Nigel Moorhaven, Seventh Marquis of Blackshire, was a traitor to his country. Finally, the conclusion was inescapable. She pressed her fists into her eyes and moaned raggedly, the horror of her situation settling in upon her.

She had been ready to tell him everything she knew. If he had come to Vauxhall when he was supposed to, she would have told him everything. What would he have done? Would he have murdered her? “
If I stay, I will hurt you
,” he had said in the glasshouse.

Too late. He’d hurt her anyway.

Kathryn wiped heavy tears of grief and mortification from her cheeks, and fled unseen from the back of the line. Out of the pavilion she ran and then down one of the long walks, her flight unremarked, as far as she knew.

She sobbed openly. Several people offered assistance, but she waved them away. Sweet summers! She was in love with a traitor.

She ran blindly toward the docks. She wanted nothing more than to flee to Grosvenor Square and thence home to Heathford. She longed to feel her parents’ loving arms about her.

As she ran headlong over a cross-path, she caught sight of Blackshire, striding purposefully up a parallel path. She gasped and ducked behind a yew, fright clearing her mind. She stopped crying and watched him pass out of sight, suddenly finding that her heart no longer ached. A great maw of emptiness had opened inside her, instead, and she felt nothing. She found she could think rationally once more. Her mind worked with crystalline clarity.

She had to go back to Lady Marchman’s. Now—tonight!

The school was completely empty, as even the servants were required to chaperon the large party at Vauxhall. She had to retrieve the plan from where the lining of the drapery in her chamber at the school. No one would believe her unless she had evidence to support her claims. She would carry away the war plans and take them to the authorities. Blackshire and his French accomplices had to be stopped.

She gave up all hope of finding the diary. She wouldn’t waste a moment searching for it back at the school, and she knew Auntie would agree with her reasons. Recovering the diary was not as important as safeguarding England.

As she paid to recross the river and hired a hack to take her with all haste back to Baroness Marchman’s School for Young Ladies, Kathryn’s mind tried to avoid dwelling upon Blackshire’s probable fate, were she successful in reporting him to the authorities, but her rebellious heart would not be kept in check. The tears were flowing freely as she stepped down and paid the driver. She would stand by her decision. She had no choice but to go through with her plan. She loved her country and knew where her duty lay.

Blackshire would hang, and she would hate herself forever.

Taking up a large stone, she made a silent apology to Lady Marchman before smashing the glass in one of the dining room windows, which were the lowest to the ground. Taking care to avoid being cut by the saw-toothed edges of the shattered glass, she unlatched the window and climbed inside.

JANE WAS BECOMING worried. No sooner than he had arrived than did Nigel declare he was going to pay his respects to the Prince Regent, who was dining in the Hall of Mirrors, but Jane judged Nigel had been gone too long. Neither had it escaped her attention that Kitty had disappeared. As soon as she could, Jane herself escaped the supper box.

Her suspicions proved correct; Nigel was not in the Hall of Mirrors. The prince was not even in attendance that night, she learned. Considering that Kitty was gone as well, Jane was left with one of two possible conclusions: either Kitty and Nigel were off trysting on the Lover’s Walk here at Vauxhall, or both of them had secretly gone back to the school. Goodness! If Nigel were there to catch a spy, and Kitty were skulking about in the dark looking for whatever it was she was looking for . . .

Jane crossed the Thames and found Thomas amongst a throng of other waiting servants. He was napping in Nigel’s carriage, the reins wrapped loosely about his fingers. Jane hated to wake him, but there was no help for it. There was no time to lose. “Thomas!” she took the reins and shook him awake.

Thomas looked around him in sleepy confusion? “Wha’?”

“Did the marquis come back across the river, Thomas?”

Thomas blinked. “He . . . he s-said . . . he . . .”

“Come now, Thomas! Pull yourself out of the fog. What did Nigel say?”

Thomas sat up and rubbed his eyes. “Nothin’, miss. I ain’t seen ’is lordship,” he declared, gripping the seat and looking away.

Jane could see his knuckles were white, and the tension in his little body was great. “Have you seen Kitty?”

“No, my lady.”

“Thomas, listen. This is important, a matter of life and death. You must tell me the truth. Are you sure you haven’t seen her?”

Thomas turned back and his eyes grew wide at the word “death.”

“N-no, my lady,” he stammered. “I ‘aven’t seen ’er.
Just ’im
.” He gasped and clapped his hand over his mouth. “Crikey!”

“It is all right, Thomas. You might just have saved someone’s life. Where did Blackshire go?”

“I dunno, my lady. ’E just said I wasn’t to tell nobody I’d seen ’im, an’ then he up an ’ired a hackney coach. It took off like the ‘orses’ tails were on fire, it did. Back the way we come to get ’ere. That’s all I know, my lady. Honest!”

“Good boy, Thomas!” Taking the reins from him, Jane turned Nigel’s carriage about and, with trouble, managed to drive out of the maze of other carriages awaiting their owners on this side of the Thames. As soon as they were clear, she whipped up the horses and headed for Silver Street.

“Beggin’ your pardon, my lady,” Thomas shouted over the clatter of hooves, “but where are we ’eadin’ to?”

“Lady Marchman’s School for Young Ladies!”

“Is Miss Kitty in trouble?”

“She is missing, Thomas.”

Thomas held out his hands. “Then you better let me take the reins, my lady. There’s somewhere else we ought to check first. It’s on the way. An’ if Miss Kitty is in trouble, we should tell ’him, even if’n she’s not there.”

“Tell who, Thomas?” Jane asked, handing over the reins and gripping the side of the carriage tight.

“Mr. Ben Dullson!” Thomas shouted over the din. “A bloke what lives in Grosvenor Square!”

NIGEL’S KNIFE WAS drawn and his muscles compressed to spring.

There was a man—he was sure it was a man by the heaviness of the footfalls—somewhere above him on the second floor of the school. The dastard was taking no care to hide himself. He was bold as a miller’s shirt. He’d left the front door unlocked, he was carrying a lantern around to light his way, and he was ransacking the house, frantically overturning vessels and furniture. But the downstairs hadn’t yet been touched.

Nigel lay in wait there, knowing the man would have to come down eventually, knowing an ambush was a safer wager than a chase,

Who was he, this man who would betray England? Kathryn’s superior, or merely her employer? Her friend--or her lover? The thought struck him with a force that took his breath away. Jane had told him there was a girl at the school who was expecting. She’d overheard Mary Gant and Lady Marchman whispering about it--by eavesdropping, no doubt. Could that girl be Kathryn? Had the man he now stalked put a child into her belly? Nigel tried to shrug off the thought. It did not matter, he told himself. She did not matter. But he knew, even as the thought crossed his mind, that he lied to himself.

Blast! He had to steel his mind. He had to concentrate, or he’d get himself killed. With an effort, he turned his mind to the danger before him. There was something in this house the spy wanted enough to kill for, Nigel was sure.

It was also enough for Nigel to die for.

Minutes ticked by before, quite suddenly, the commotion upstairs stilled. Nigel grew concerned the dastard had somehow become aware of him and might use a window to escape. The thought forced Nigel’s hand; he could lie in wait no longer. Carefully, he crept up the stairs, keeping his eye on the faint glow of lamplight he could still see. Suddenly, a tread creaked underfoot, and the light disappeared. Silently, Nigel swore.

From that point on, his quarry was no longer bold. He was cautious, expertly stealthy, and almost silent. But not as silent as Nigel.

With all the servants gone, the fires had been put out or banked, and the house was dark as coal. Soundlessly, Nigel crept up the stairs, ready for an attack when he rounded the landing or gained the next floor, but none came. He’d have preferred an attack; that he could handle. Instead, he found himself inching down a corridor, listening to every crack and groan of the house as it settled and swayed in the wind, to every
tick-tock
and every clang of chimes. The other man was using the sounds as cover, Nigel was sure, for that’s what Nigel himself was doing, as he moved slowly, slowly along the corridor, closing in.

Until the crash of shattering glass downstairs broke the stillness.

Nigel’s attention wavered for a split second. Two of them! One clever and stealthy enough to rig the front door and the other clumsy and bold enough to break a window. With a blow at just the right angle, Nigel knew he could render a man unconscious instantly, but it would be impossible to deliver the blow with the needed accuracy in total darkness, and if the first man cried out, the second man would be upon them almost instantly. Nigel knew he could kill them both, but Sir Winston had warned it was vital the spies be brought in unharmed or at least still able to speak.

Drawing his pistol, he continued his hunt, knowing the odds against him had more than doubled. He’d kill both of them, if he had to, but even if he had to give his own life, Nigel wasn’t going to let either of them escape. All England depended upon him. He crept through the house, his senses alert for any movement, any odor, current, or sound that would allow him to strike. He would not fail—except in one regard.

He was going to let Kathryn go.

Hell, he would force her to go. He knew certain parties who would deliver human cargo anywhere in the world. When he found her, he’d probably have to knock the hellcat out. She’d wake up with a bump on the head on a ship bound for America.

And Nigel would have to live with the terrible knowledge that he’d betrayed his country.

BRIAN O’FLAUGHERTY listened to the sound of breaking glass and sneered. There was another English piss-ant in the house, and a foolish one by the sound of it. He used the distraction and the noise to open a window. He, damn him, was not the oaf the one downstairs evidently was, and he was closing in on Brian even now.

Climbing out the window, he clung to the ornate moulding on the house and edged along a ledge to the next window over. It was unlocked, of course, as Brian had opened it himself an hour ago, just in case.

He thought he’d kill the stupid, clumsy one first. Maybe slit his throat. Gurgling screams would serve as a pleasant distraction for the clever one.

Damn them both!

The plans were here somewhere, and Brian wanted nothing more than to retrieve them and collect his reward, a portion of gold the French had promised would see him safely back to Ireland and living in comfort for the rest of his days. No longer would he be at the mercy of an English landlord, scrabbling through the turf digging potatoes or poaching rabbits. No more wondering if he’d make it through the winter and having to bring the steaming, stinking animals inside his low, smoky sod hut to keep himself and them from freezing to death. No more accepting alms from the lord’s patronizing missus, who always looked as though the smell of Brian’s hovel pained her. And--
God’s eyes
!--there would be no more playing the part of the mincing, sniveling English dancing master!