Chapter 7
7
CHAPTER 7
D erek marveled at Cassandra’s ability to appear as the very prim and stern Missus Collins mere hours after he’d left her lying in the alluring dishevelment of the most voracious and uninhibited lover he’d ever known. He’d watched her sleep this morning, tangled naked in the bedclothes of the comfortable bed in her housekeeper’s rooms, and had nearly crawled back beneath the counterpane and sheets to awaken her for one more erotic tumble. As she stood now, arms crossed just inside the room Margot had used as a study in her housekeeper’s garb of dark wool dress and crisp white pinafore and cap, he could tell she’d heard his latest decision. And that she did not approve.
“Thank you, Rutherford.” Derek poured himself a cup of coffee from the pot on the breakfast tray the footman had delivered to the ornate French Empire desk. “I see you have informed Missus Collins of my decision,” he muttered under his breath. “Traitor.”
“Sorry, sir.” Young Rutherford and Derek both glanced up at the lady in question. Her expression made them both shudder. “Good luck.” He fairly sprinted from the room.
“Would you like some tea?’ Derek asked as he poured her a cup and added milk and sugar just the way she preferred. She crossed the room, took the cup and perched on the edge of the gilt and green chair before the desk. “I see Rutherford has informed you of my decision to take up residence here until this entire matter is settled.” He buttered a piece of toast from the rack and offered it and the pot of jam to her. She waved him off.
“Have you taken leave of your senses, my lord? Why would you move in here and give the gossips yet more fodder for their speculations about what goes on in Grosvenor Street?”
“My servants and the servants here have been sworn to silence. I have always kept a room in each of these houses. The servants here know of the danger all of us are in, and therefore they see nothing untoward in my staying here for a while.” He kept his tone even and calm. She was spoiling for a fight, but he was going to keep her and the other ladies safe and limit their involvement in this affair if it was the last thing he did.
“The ladies all have husbands to keep them safe. Not to mention the Rutherfords in residence. Have you sent word to your now married mistresses that you feel the need to stand guard over them from this house because you believe their husbands and the canniest family of dockside brawlers ever to be under Captain El’s command are not capable of doing so?”
“You had no objection to my presence last night.” He allowed a half smile to curl his lips. She scowled at him, clearly not amused not deceived in the least. She leaned across the desk.
“Last night you served as my lover. Your taking up residence here will be as my gaoler, and well you know it, Derek Welkirk. Not only my gaoler, but all of we ladies’ gaoler. You will spend your days persuading their husbands not to allow them to take part in Lady Camilla’s plan and that will not do.”
She was magnificent in a pique, but also stubborn and immovable, dammit. “I simply—”
“Your Grosvenor Street ladies are no longer in your employ, and if you insist on keeping me under lock and key, neither will I be.” She stood and flattened her hands on the desk. “This woman, whoever she is, is not after you, Derek. I have watched over these women for six years. I will not stand by and watch them be killed for something they did not do.”
He pushed from his chair and mimicked her pose across the desk. “And I will not allow you to suffer Celeste’s fate for something you did not do when it is in my power to prevent it.” He was shouting. His heart pounded against his ribs.
“I am not Celeste, Derek!” Her face had gone white.
“No, you’re not Celeste. You could never be Celeste.”
She straightened and took a step back as if he’d struck her. He had no idea where those words came from, but he meant them, every word. Just as he meant what he said next.
“Do you have no idea how frightening your courage and determination are to me? You give me no choice but to try and lock you up, Cassandra. What would I do if something happened to you?” He dropped back into the chair suddenly deprived of the strength to stand. “What would I do?” he whispered, his voice a broken rasp. He gazed at her, drinking in her face—the confusion in her eyes, her lips parted as if to speak, but unwilling to do so.
“Derek,” she said softly, as she reached for his hand.
“Gent in the foyer, my lord,” Toplofty Rutherford announced as he burst into the study. “Says you sent for him. Bit full of hisself for a clerk if you ask me.”
Cassandra slid her hand back.
“The manager of my shipping concerns,” Derek said. “Please bring him up. I need to consult with him about something.” He looked to Cassandra who was already backing out of the room. “To be continued?” he mouthed. She gave him a slight smile, inclined her head, and then was gone.
“Awright, my lord?” Toplofty asked as he watched Cassandra leave and then turned back to Derek.
“Fucked if I know, Rutherford.” He rested his chin in his hand.
“That’s the way of it with women, my lord, i’nt it? I’ll bring the gent up.”
Derek took a moment to steady himself. He had a task to ask of his shipping manager. Going over the last hour with Cassandra would not serve him in explaining that task, though finding the person who had identified the murderess as one of Derek’s mistresses to Elias Shell would also protect her if he could find the man before Lady Camilla’s mad plan was set in motion.
“You sent for me, my lord?” Cecil Langford strolled into the study. A tall, thin man in his sixties with a shock of white hair, a beak of a nose, and a cocksure attitude that bordered on arrogance. He’d run Derek’s offices on the docks for the last six years. He was competent and efficient, though his ideas about how to increase Derek’s shipping concerns were distasteful and most definitely unsolicited.
“Yes, Langford.” Derek indicated the chair Cassandra had just left. “I have a task for you. I wish you to use your connections on the docks to find a man who arrived on an East Indiaman in September, likely from the West Indies. He was an associate of one Elias Shell and is known to frequent the Prospect of Whitby and other taverns in Limehouse.” He handed the man the information Col had provided him with on Shell’s accomplice’s movements since September. “He has been spotted from time to time. I need to know his exact location.”
Langford stared at the papers for a moment, shook his head, and slowly took them from Derek’s hand. He hardly glanced at them before he hastily folded them and shoved them into his coat pocket. “Not a great deal to go on there, my lord. Perhaps you should hire a Runner to find this man. People come and go from the West Indies all the time. Is there a particular reason you are interested in this person?” He cleared his throat several times.
“A private business matter, Langford, and I have hired a Runner. Your search will be in addition to the Runner’s work.” Derek wanted to get on with his day. He fully intended to take some of his mistresses’ husbands to task for allowing their wives to court danger to discover the identity of a woman bent on seeing one of them hang or worse.
“Are you considering some of the business proposals I have suggested in the West Indies, my lord? Now is an excellent time to—”
“No. I have no interest in anything to do with trade in the West Indies. My grandfather dismantled our concerns there before I was born. I have no interest in the slave trade, the cultivation of sugar, or anything else to do with that despicable business.”
“As you wish, my lord. Your heir is most interested in expanding the estate’s interests into the West Indies. Have you considered you are merely putting off the inevitable?”
Derek’s blood ran cold. Today was not the day to cross him. He’d had enough. “My heir is an heir in name only. My late cousin did a bloody disgusting job of raising the boy. I’m not dead yet, Langford. You might want to tell my heir that the next time you speak with him.” He pulled a stack of ledgers newly delivered from his Grosvenor Square study across the desk. “That will be all, Langford. Thank you.” He opened a ledger and pretended to study the contents.
Langford sat there for a moment as if considering continuing the conversation. After a period of awkward silence, he stood, offered Derek a bow, and left the room. Something about the man’s behavior was off. The idea sat in the back of Derek’s mind, whilst he scratched out a note to the gentlemen living in Number One, Number Two, Number Three, and Number Four. He could not dispel himself of the notion he’d missed something in that conversation. Something very important.
Cassandra performed one last inspection of the earl’s chambers before leaving the last of the cleaning to the two upstairs maids and the unpacking of the bags he’d had sent over to Short Rutherford. To their credit, neither the maids nor Rutherford had indicated by glance or word that they found anything untoward about Derek moving into Number Five. The talk below stairs, however, was likely to reach a fever pitch by supper tonight.
She descended the stairs to the first floor and considered whether she should walk past the study in the hope his meeting had ended. Her head still spun at the things he’d said and what those words might have meant. She was being ridiculous, of course. The idea of pinning her silly female hopes on something said in the heat of the moment? Cassandra had led a life far too practical and real to even entertain such thoughts.
As she paced down the corridor she heard a noise behind the closed library doors. Molly passed her coming from the other direction.
“Is there someone cleaning in the library?” she asked the maid.
“No, Missus Collins. Red Mary and that Alice lass cleaned the library first thing and lit the fire in case his lordship wished to work in there this afternoon.”
“Hmm.” Cassandra was certain she’d heard something and it appeared one of the double doors was slightly ajar. “Not to worry, Molly. Run along. I’ll check the library. Perhaps a window was left open.”
“Yes, Missus Collins.” Molly bobbed a curtsy and went on her way.
Cassandra stepped to the library doors and reach for one of the latches. A thin, boney hand clasped her wrist and dragged her into the library, slinging her to the floor as the door was slammed and the lock turned.
“What the bloody hell—You!” She scrambled to her feet and put a library table between the apparition from her past. Bits and pieces of information flashed into her mind one over another.
“Why Missus Rebecca Simmons, as I live and breathe. Captain Simmons’s child bride working as a housekeeper in Mayfair all this time. And here I thought you were just another of the earl’s whores.”
“You scurrilous dog.” Cassandra clenched her fists and looked about furtively for a weapon of some kind. “You’re the one who told Shell a murderess lived in one of these houses. You’re the one who set a blackmailer and a madwoman after me and endangered all of these women’s lives.”
“Indeed,” Langford said, as he slowly stalked across the room as if he had all the time in the world. “I will agree Shell was not the best partner in my little endeavor. Too many of his associates ended up dead. Hence my silence on the matter these past months. He’s been looking for me, but now that he’s dead…”
“Who hired him? Who is trying to avenge—”
“Avenge the murder of our mutual acquaintance, Mister Rushton? I have no idea. But I suspect if I let it be known I can now identify the murderess, she will find me, now, won’t she? Her offer of one thousand pounds for the delivery of said murderess is all over the Dials.”
“What do you want, Cecil? My husband always said you would sell your own mother for the right price. What is your price for silence?” Cassandra feared her heart would leap from her throat. She had fooled herself into thinking she was safe. She had thought the earl’s friends could find the blackmailer and all would be well. She had nearly considered a life with…
Langford reached out and clasped her arm in his talon-like fingers. He dragged her against him and grabbed her breast with his other hand. “I want what Captain Simmons bragged about in every tavern in Jamaica.” He pressed his stinking, hot mouth to hers.
Crack! Her hand stung and pain shot up her arm. She slapped him again and shoved free of his grasp.
“Bitch!” He raised his fist. She delivered a lightning jab to his nose. He grabbed her wrist and twisted hard. She bent over in pain, and he wrapped his free hand around her throat to drag her upright. “You’ll come with me, and you’ll do as I say for the rest of your life, or I’ll turn you over to Shell’s employer and tell the world Framlingwood has been hiding a murderess in his employ, likely fucking her as well.” Cassandra blinked against the dimming of her vision. Sparks flashed before her eyes. She tried to drag in a breath and could only gasp.
“I don’t think so mate.” A loud thump and suddenly she was free. She staggered back and dragged in breath after breath. She looked down to see Langford crumpled at her feet. “Come have a seat, missus. Molly, go fetch the lads, there’s a good girl. And keep your tongue behind your teeth, understand?”
“Toplofty?” Cassandra croaked as a strong arm curled around her waist and she was guided into a chair against the back wall of the library.
“The very same.” He nodded toward the motionless Langford on the library floor. “Something about that one set my back up. S’pose I was right.”
“You have no idea. How much did you hear?” Already her mind was racing.
“Didn’t hear nothing you don’t want me to hear,” he said, whilst kneeling next to her chair. He checked her wrist and hands for injuries before holding her hand between his.
She stared at him in disbelief.
“You’ve ever done right by us, Missus Collins. Me and me boys, and we ain’t exactly easy to do right by. Whatever this one was on about, he won’t hear it from any of us. Will he, boys?”
Young Rutherford, Tall Rutherford, and Short Rutherford slipped into the room. Molly stood just inside the library peering out through a crack in the door.
“Hear what, Da?” Tall Rutherford asked. Cassandra fought back tears. Young Rutherford knelt down and looked at her throat.
“Bit of ice, and there won’t be bruises,” he said. “Lucky the piece of shite was such a weakling.”
Langford moaned and struggled to his feet. Short Rutherford was on him before he could draw breath to scream. He punched the man to the floor until he stopped moving and then wrenched his arms behind his back to tied his hands together with a strip of leather. “Is he for the Thames, Da?”
“No!” Cassandra clasped Toplofty’s arm. “No more murders. Is there some other way to get rid of him?”
“War Dyer’s got a ship bound for China on the evening tide,” Tall Rutherford said. “We tell him this cove attacked a woman like our Missus Collins, he’ll have his captain take this shite to China and leave him there.”
“Dyer?” Cassandra met Toplofty’s gaze. “You know the Four Horsemen?”
The elder Rutherford gave her an are-you-truly-asking-me-that look.
“Of course you do.” She shook her head. “Can you get him out of the house without anyone knowing?” What she meant was could they do this without Derek finding out, and the way they returned her gaze they understood completely. She knew what she had to do, but above all she had to protect Derek first.
“Consider it done,” Young Rutherford said. He pointed to a section of paneling down the wall. Tall Rutherford strode down and opened the paneling to one of the many servants’ passages throughout the five townhouses. He went to where Short Rutherford had Langford hogtied and gagged and they lifted the old mine by his elbows and dragged him across the carpet and out into the passageway.
Toplofty stood and motioned Molly over. “Run down to the mews. Don’t let anyone see you. Have John Coachman ready the old black carriage. Tell him we’ll be doing the driving. And remember, Molly-girl, nothing of what you saw or heard to anyone, especially not his lordship.” She gave him a saucy grin and flounced out of the room. He pointed at Young Rutherford. “You stay here and see to Missus Collins. I’ll see to this. Where are your other two brothers?”
“Quick is at Number One and Slow is at Number Three,” Young Rutherford replied.
“Good.” Toplofty turned to her once more. “With his lordship in the house, twill be hard for you to be out and about without him knowing. Should you need to, take this one with you. This won’t be over yet, will it?”
“No, it won’t, Mister Rutherford, but soon.” She stood and kissed his cheek. “Thank you.” The dear man blushed and inclined his head. He disappeared down the servants’ passage. Cassandra took a deep breath. She walked on shaky legs to the escritoire before one of the floor- to-ceiling windows along one side of the library. “I need to send a message to Captain El and to Archer Colwyn. Then I’ll need the carriage to take me to meet them.” She dragged a piece of parchment from one of the pigeon holes in the escritoire and tried to steady her hand as she wrote a quick message to each of the people she’d mentioned.
“His lordship’s not going to like this, is he?” Young Rutherford said as he took the two missives she handed to him.
“No,” she replied as she pressed her fist against her heart. “He will not like this at all.”