Stephanie Laurens - What Price Love?

“Have you seen Lady Priscilla?” Dillon asked.

“No, sir.” Highthorpe glanced at his minion manning the doors; the footman shook his head. “She hasn’t been this way.”

Dillon hesitated, thinking, imagining, then he swore, and strode out of the doors, down the steps into the street. The nearer curb was lined with carriages; on the opposite side a little way back stood a lone black carriage, curtains drawn, the driver and a groom alert on the box. Turning in the other direction, Dillon saw a single hackney idly waiting for some gentleman to leave the ball; the hackney stood opposite the entrance to the lane that ran alongside the Cynsters’ garden wall. He headed for the hackney.

Seeing him coming, Rus at his back, the driver stirred and sat up, gathering his reins. He touched his cap as Dillon reached him. “Where to, guv?”

“Did you see a carriage pick up someone in the lane?”

The driver blinked. “Aye-a friend o’mine picked up a fare there not two minutes since. He-m’friend-was in line ahead of me. A gent flagged him over into the lane. He had a woman with him, a lady-she looked poorly.”

“Poorly how?” Rus asked.

The driver frowned. “Well, she had a veil thing over her head, and she seemed unsteady-the gent had hold of her. He helped her into the carriage.”

“What color was her gown?” Dillon asked.

“Darkish-green, I think.”

Rus swore. “What of the man?”

“Never mind that,” Dillon cut in. “Did you hear the direction?”

The driver blinked. “Aye. Tothill way. The gent said as how he’d direct Joe when they got there.”

Dillon wrenched open the hackney door and waved Rus in. “Can you follow him?”

The driver’s eyes lit. “Easy enough-I know the route he’ll take.”

“Ten sovereigns when you catch him.” Dillon leapt into the carriage, slammed the door on the driver’s cheery, “Right you are!” and slumped onto the seat as the hackney lurched into motion.

He and Rus clung to the straps as the driver set off to claim his reward. They rocked down the lane, clattered down a street, then turned into a more crowded thoroughfare-Piccadilly. They joined the slow river of carriages edging along. Rus swore, and looked out of the window.

The trap in the roof slid open; the driver called down, “I can see Joe ahead of us, sir, but I won’t be able to get up to him ’til we’re out of this crush.”

“Just keep him in sight. As long as we catch him when he stops, the money’s yours.”

“Right!”

A moment later, the driver spoke again, his tone more careful. “Ah…I don’t know as how I should mention this, sir, but there’s a carriage following us. It’s the one that was outside the house when you came out. I wouldn’t mention it, but…I recognize the driver.”

Dillon hesitated, then said, “I know who it is. They’re supposed to be following us.”

“Supposed to be?” The driver sounded intrigued, but relieved. After a moment, he called, “Right you are, sir.” The trap dropped back into place.

Rus looked at Dillon. “Who’s in the other carriage?”

“Most likely a man called Tranter, and some of his men. They won’t bother us, and if we need help, they’ll be there.”

Rus studied him. After a moment, he said, “Who is he-the man who grabbed Pris?”

Across the carriage, Dillon met his eyes. “I don’t know his name, but I’d wager my life he’s Mr. X.”

In the carriage ahead of them, Pris gave up trying to surreptitiously free her hands. He’d used silk to bind them, too; her efforts had only pulled the knots tighter. Relaxing as best she could against what she assumed was a hackney’s seat, she forced herself to calm, to take stock.

She’d nearly fainted when he’d bundled her into the carriage. He’d loosened the silk wrapped about her head, but ruthlessly replaced it once she was breathing normally. The folds were now tight around her eyes, less tight about her lips, and not at all over her nose. She could breathe, but she couldn’t cry out. The best she could do was mumble.

“Why?” She knew he sat opposite her. Was he who she thought he was? Could the Honorable Mr. Abercrombie-Wallace, tallish, dark-haired, slightly heavier in build and older than Barnaby, scion of a noble house, truly be Mr. X?

“I’m quite sure, my dear, that you’re intelligent enough to work it out-your fiancé wouldn’t have missed the chance to crow, to portray himself as a vanquishing defender of the turf.”

His voice was cool, detached. No hint of humanity colored his tone.

“You’re…?” It was too difficult to manage whole sentences.

“Indeed. I’m the one he vanquished.”

She could feel his eyes on her, cold, assessing. “So…?”

“So now I’m ruined!” His façade cracked; emotion spilled through-fury, malevolence, naked hate. Suddenly, he was raging. “Completely and utterly! Like many of my peers, I’ve lived my life on tick, so the fact their bills haven’t been paid hasn’t immediately alerted my creditors. By the time they realize that this time is different, that this time they won’t be paid at all, I’ll be far away. However, I’m not delighted to be forced to leave my life here, so comfortable and accommodating, and disappear. Yet that-” His voice cracked as he spat the word, dripping with malice.

He paused; Pris heard him draw a deep breath, sensed him struggle to resume the mild, debonair mask he showed the world. “Yet that”-his voice was once again a smooth, melodic, well-conditioned drawl-“is what your fiancé has reduced me to. I’ll have to scurry off to the Continent, and live hand to mouth until I can find some gullible soul to supply my needs. But that degrading scenario is not, in itself, why you’re here. You see, now I haven’t even the illusion of funds, I can’t gamble.”

Pris frowned.

“No-not the horses. Cards are my vice, and a very expensive mistress she’s proved to be. But I could keep her, could feed and clothe her as long as I could tap funds from somewhere. And yes, that’s where the horses came in. I care nought for the racetrack, but I found it, and those drawn to it, so useful. So easily twisted to my purpose. It was all working so well, until…until your fiancé, and if I have it correctly, your brother, intervened.”

His voice had altered on that last phrase. Pris fought to suppress a shiver. Was he taking her with him to the Continent?

She gathered enough breath, enough courage to mumble, “So me?”

A long silence ensued, then he said, “So you, my dear, are my revenge.”

In the carriage behind, Dillon reached up and rapped on the trap door. When it opened, he asked, “How far ahead are they?”

“ ’Bout a hundred yard, maybe more.”

“Get as close as you can.”

“Aye, sir. Joe always takes the route down Whitehall-I’ll be able to close the gap then.” The trap fell back into place.

They were rolling down Pall Mall, still slow as the hackney dodged the carriages of gentlemen out for a night in the hells.

“Tothill-that’s the stews, isn’t it?”

Dillon nodded. “One of the many.”

“Why there?”

He hesitated, then answered truthfully, “I don’t like to think.”

The journey seemed interminable, but after heading down Cock-spur Street, the hackney wheeled into Whitehall and picked up pace.

They rattled along at a good clip, then had to slow, with much cursing from the driver, as Westminster loomed on their left and the hackney had to negotiate the largely pedestrian traffic thronging the square before the Guild Hall.

At last they pulled free, but the cursing continued. Dillon risked standing, and pushed up the trap. “What is it?”

“Lost ’im!” the driver wailed. “I know he went up ’ere, but he’s turned off somewheres.”

Dillon swore and leaned out of the window to the right. “Slow down-we’ll search.”

Rus hung out of the other window as they rolled slowly along, but the bulk of Westminster Abbey blocked that side of the street. Then the abbey ended, and he peered into the night. A street opened ahead. As they neared, the driver called, “Should I head up to Tothill, then?”

“Wait!” Rus stared. “Down there-is that them?”

“That’s him!” The driver swung his horse around, and they clattered down.

“Right two ahead,” Dillon called.

“I see him.” The driver took the turn too fast; he slowed, corrected, then swore volubly again. “Gone again.”

“Search!” Dillon ordered.

They headed into a maze of narrow, cluttered lanes and fetid alleyways. It had always struck Dillon as one of fate’s ironies that some of the worst stews in the capital existed in the shadow of the country’s most venerated abbey. They quartered the area, the black carriage now directly behind them; they occasionally stopped to listen, and heard the clop of the other hackney’s horse, but never spotted it. They reached one edge of the densely packed area; the driver slowed.

He leaned around the edge of the box to speak to Dillon. “We’ll never find him this way, guv, but where he’s gone in, he has to come out, and I know where he’ll do that. Do y’want to try that way?”

Dillon hesitated, then nodded. “Yes.”

Looking across the carriage, he met Rus’s eyes. “Better to risk being a few minutes behind, than losing her trail altogether.”

Grim-faced, Rus nodded.

The driver drove back to the first corner they’d turned down. He’d barely pulled to the side of the road, when he called, “ ’Ere he comes now! Hey, Joe-pull up!” To make sure of it, the driver angled his horse across the street.

His mate drew up alongside the black carriage amid a welter of colorful curses. Dillon jumped down to the street. Rus hit the cobbles on the other side of the hackney.

“ ’Ere.” Joe eyed them warily. “What’s up?” Belatedly, he touched his cap. “Gents?”

A smile was beyond Dillon. “You just carried a fare into the stews. A man and a lady-am I right?”

“Aye.” Joe glanced at his friend.

“Just answer them. They’re not after you.”

“Was the lady struggling?” Rus asked.

Joe blinked. “No…well, not so’s you’d notice. She had this thing over ’er head-she weren’t fighting the gent, but then she couldn’t, could she?”

“Where did you leave them?” Dillon rapped out, hideously conscious of the minutes ticking by.

“Where?” Joe stared at Dillon, then looked at his friend. “Ah…”

Suddenly, a shadow loomed at Dillon’s shoulder. Dillon glanced at the newcomer, who’d approached on catlike feet. The man stood a head taller than Dillon, and was half again as broad, every inch of it muscle and bone. His hands were hams, his eyes small; he leaned close to tell Joe, “Mr. Tranter says as you should tell the gentl’man anything he wants to know.”

Eyes like saucers, Joe just nodded.

The apparition waited, then inquired in the same innocuously dulcet tones, “What, then? Cat got your tongue?”

Joe nearly swallowed the appendage in question. He coughed, helplessly looked at Dillon. “Betsy Miller’s place. That’s where I set them down.”

Dillon glanced at the giant. “Betsy Miller’s?”

“It’s a brothel,” the giant helpfully supplied. “A high-class one. Caters for the likes o’ the pair o’you.” His nod indicated Dillon and Rus.

Over the back of Joe’s horse, Dillon and Rus stared at each other.

The giant nudged Dillon. “Reckon you’ll want to get on your way, like. Mr. Tranter, me, and the boys’ll be right behind yer.”

Dillon slammed the carriage door seconds later.

Still blind and effectively dumb, Pris stumbled along what she assumed was a corridor at the top of a long flight of narrow stairs. Behind and to her side, Wallace paced, steering her, one hand wrapped about her arm.

“Here we are.”

He halted her, reached across her to open a door, then pushed her through it.

She staggered over the threshold; instantly, the acrid smell she’d been aware of from the moment she’d been bundled into the building intensified. Sweat, men, and a peculiar mustiness. Starved of air, she thought she might swoon. Swaying, she held her breath, and fought the blackness back. This was not the time for sensitivity. She was going to need every ounce of wit, strength, and courage she could muster to escape what ever Wallace had planned.

She felt him tug at the knots securing the silk covering her face. An instant later, the folds loosened, then fell. While Wallace unraveled the long band, drawing it free, she licked her dry lips, then blinked and looked around.

At first glance, she thought she’d been mistaken in her impressions and Wallace had brought her up the back stairs of some mansion; the room looked like an opulently furnished bedchamber, with a large tester bed complete with red velvet hangings and crimson satin coverlet, with bloodred, embossed wallpaper on the walls. Then she blinked again, and her focus sharpened.