Chapter 10
10
CHAPTER 10
T he oddity of a family portrait, one painted in the last twenty years if judged by the age of the subject, being hung in a corridor just off the kitchens should have been cause enough for Cassandra to stop and stare. Which it likely would have been had the portrait not been a likeness of the man who had invaded her nightmares these six years. She swallowed her gorge as she met the gaze of Roger Rushton as a young man of perhaps twenty. He was in his thirties when she’d worked for him, when she’d murdered him, but his was a face she’d recognize even if her vision were dimmed by age. His eyes, flat and feral, could not be made human by the stroke of an artist’s brush. Or perhaps the artist knew Rushton. A small shiver coursed down the length of her spine.
“Found her.” Dickie Jones appeared at her elbow as if by magic, which was his wont. The boy was half wraith and half alley cat. “You awright, missus?”
“Of course I am.” She turned to face him, a tray of crab cakes clutched in her hands so tightly her knuckles were white.” Who is the mistress of the house and where is she?”
“She’s in the card room. The viscount’s mother, one Dowager Viscountess Mary Rushton-Coates by name.” He pronounced her name in the cultured tones he could mimic at the drop of a hat, but chose not to save in the presence of Lady Camilla. “The viscount is from her second marriage. First marriage got her a son who died in Jamaica some years back.”
“I know.” She spoke on a breath of air.
“I see.” Dickie stared at her with all of the cunning insight that had kept him alive on the streets of the most notorious rookeries in London from a very early age. “He’s the one, isn’t he?” He nodded at the painting. She handed him the tray and fished in the pocket of the starched white maid’s pinafore she wore.
“Take this note to her.” She handed him a folded piece of parchment and took the tray back. “Then go and tell Mister Charpentier I will be back in just a bit.”
“What are you about?” Dickie demanded.
“Setting things right. I’ll be fine. On with you now. Try not to be too obvious when you hand her the note.”
“I don’t like this,” he muttered as he turned and walked out toward the entrance hall.
“Neither do I,” she murmured. She found the inset door at the end of the poorly lit corridor and took the servants’ stairs up to the first floor and out into the far end of the ballroom where the buffet table stretched across one wall. She delivered the crab cakes to one of Charpentier’s uniformed footmen and went back to the door through which she’d entered the ballroom. Young Rutherford stood just inside the servants’ passage.
“Anything, Missus Collins?” he asked.
“Nothing so far,” she replied, a smile she did not feel affixed to her face. “I’m afraid all we will discover this night is how good Mister Charpentier’s food is.” She nodded at the macaron in Rutherford’s hand.
“Not a bad bit of work, that. Have you tried the marzipan?”
“No, but I intend to do so at the first opportunity. I’m going back down for some those little mince pies. The table is nearly empty of those. I’ll be right back.”
“I didn’t eat those, I swear,” he called as she hurried down the stairs.
“A likely story,” she called back up to him. She hurried away from the kitchens and across the back of the house to the conservatory she’d investigated upon their arrival to prepare the food for the ball. Just as Lady Jane and Saida said, both the exotic orchid and the oleander were in generous supply. She hurried into the hot, humid room lit by lamps in sconces every few feet. Upon hearing footsteps in the corridor leading to the doors, Cassandra stepped behind a large flowering hibiscus.
The woman who entered the conservatory was tall with silver hair and a sharp, cruel face. Dressed in the finest silk and draped in jewels, she was the epitome of a ton dowager save for the bright light in her ice blue eyes. Cassandra had seen that light before, the night she’d murdered Roger Rushton.
“Come out, whore,” the woman announced in a stern commanding tone. “Or are you afraid to face me?”
“Not at all, your ladyship.” Cassandra stepped out onto the path directly in front of the dowager countess. “Having faced down your lecherous son, there is very little I fear.” In playing chess with Derek, she’d learned a valuable lesson, strike first and strike hard.
Lady Mary raised her hand and attempted to strike her. Cassandra caught her wrist and flung her hand back at her. “I didn’t come here for this. I will go with you to Bow Street and confess all. I will face the magistrates and take whatever punishment they mete out. But I want your word you will cease this misguided vengeance that has resulted in murder and the persecution of people who never did you any harm.”
The older woman studied her carefully. Cassandra fought the urge to squirm or look away. Something about the way the dowager countess inspected her as if she were a butterfly pinned to a board made her skin crawl.
“You will go now, this minute?”
“If you wish. I will wait here whilst you summon—”
“I summoned my carriage the moment I read your note, Miss Simmons. You were clever to sign your name. I knew immediately who you were. I have always known. You may have changed your name and lived in secret, but I knew I would find you eventually. What name are you using now?”
“It is of no matter. I will confess as Rebecca Simmons. If that is the name you have hated all these years, that should satisfy you.”
“I will be satisfied this night, girl, and with more than your name.” Lady Mary pulled a lethal looking pistol from a pocket in her beautiful gown. “This way.” She indicated a door at the side of the conservatory which led into the gardens at the back of Viscount Daily’s town mansion. Cassandra walked slowly before the dowager, out the door and through the gardens to the lane behind the mews where a carriage with a lone coachman awaited them. She climbed into the carriage onto the rear-facing bench and slid across to the far side. The dowager climbed in and took the front-facing seat, the pistol steady as a rock and aimed at Cassandra’s heart.
The small carriage lurched into motion. Lady Mary must have done more than summon the carriage. She’d obviously given her coachman directions. Cassandra doubted she’d receive any help from him. A woman who had spawned and raised a creature like Roger Rushton tended to engender blind obedience in her servants. She tried to concentrate on the direction they’d take on leaving the mews. They were heading toward the river.
Her stomach began to churn. The chill that suffused her had little to do with the simple maid’s uniform she wore against the biting cold and everything to do with the fact she’d underestimated the dowager. Ton hostesses tended not to carry pistols at balls. She slid her hand down her leg under the pinafore and felt the dagger strapped to the outside of her thigh beneath the slit in her skirt.
Thank you, Margot.
Managing a group of mistresses, she’d learned a great deal about keeping herself safe. Killing the son and then the mother was a bit much even for her. Immediately, Derek’s voice came to mind. What would I do without you, my love . She bit down on the inside of her cheek to keep the tears from her eyes. He’d tried to keep her safe. The thought of dying and leaving him did not bear contemplation. He loved her. Somehow that had become clear. He’d sorted love out, and he loved her. And dear God, she loved him. She gazed at the woman across from her, the woman staring at her with an unholy glare shining in the light of the carriage lamps.
Shite!
The carriage slowed, and she could hear the sound of the river lapping at the shore. They turned sharply and went up a slight slope. They were on a bridge. The carriage stopped. The dowager countess stepped out of the carriage quite agilely for a woman of her age. She beckoned for Cassandra to follow. Once she was outside the carriage the icy wind threatened to cut through her like a knife. She refused to rub her arms as she did not want her hand to stray far from her knife.
She’d fully intended to go through with her confession and trial. She should have realized this woman holding a pistol on her with such a steady hand would not want the lurid details of her son’s death spoken in court only to be reported in every broadsheet in London. What the devil had she been thinking? She’d been thinking of Derek, of setting him free of the worry this entire affair had caused him.
“Move,” Lady Mary snapped and indicated the pavement at the side of the bridge along the railings. Cassandra stepped up and walked along the bridge for a few steps.
“What are we doing here?” she finally turned and asked.
“ We are not doing anything,” Lady Mary replied with a slow hideous smile. Standing under a gas lamp, she looked like a specter out of one of Ann Radcliffe’s novels. “You are going to pay for my son’s death by leaping to your death. So many people do so from this spot there will be nothing remarkable when your body washes ashore. A far more gentle death than you afforded my son, you filthy whore.”
“You cannot expect me to willingly take my own life, you arrogant bitch.”
“You can do so willingly or I will shoot you in the belly and pitch your dying body into the river myself. One way or another you will pay for taking my Roger from me.” She pulled the hammer back on the pistol.
Derek leapt from his carriage and raced through the gardens at the back of Viscount Daily’s home. CB and Col caught up to him at the door into the kitchens.
“For God’s sake, Framlingwood,” CB gasped. “Don’t make a scene. We need to find out exactly what is happening.”
“You two set this in motion with your plans and schemes. I don’t have time to be cautious.” He burst into the kitchens from the outside whilst Young Rutherford and Charpentier stormed through the doors back into the main house.
“She’s gone,” Nathaniel said.
“This is the house, I mean, the viscountess, she’s the one, I mean…” Rutherford bent over and put his hands on his knees gasping for breath.
Derek grabbed the footman and shook him. “What the hell do you mean? Where is Cassandra? Who is the viscountess? What the—”
CB pried Derek’s hands away from Rutherford. “For pity’s sake, you’re going to loosen his teeth.”
“Dammit, Framlingwood, you’re not helping.” Archer Colwyn spoke to Charpentier.
“What happened?”
“Apparently, Missus Collins sent a note to the Dowager Viscountess Daily to meet her in the conservatory. Dickie delivered the note, but not before reading it, of course.” He glanced at CB and scowled. “Dickie sent word to Rutherford and apparently followed Missus Collins.”
“I’ve searched the house and spoken to all of the servants. Both the viscountess and Missus Collins are missing as is the viscountess’s carriage.”
Derek’s blood turned to ice. He could not keep a thought in his head save an image of Cassandra smiling at him in that way she had. “What is this viscountess’s connection to Roger Rushton?”
“Roger Rushton was my brother,” an unfamiliar voice announced from the entrance to the kitchens. A tall, thin distinguished gentleman stepped into the room. Servants and members of Charpentier’s staff set into a round of curtsies. The man ignored them and came to stand before Derek and his friends. “He was murdered in Jamaica, thank God. My mother never got over it. What is going on here?”
“Apparently, your damned mother has kidnapped my housekeeper. Let’s go.” Derek headed for the door into the gardens.
“Wait a moment,” the viscount called as he followed after Derek, CB, Nathaniel, Rutherford and Col. “My mother’s mad as a hatter, but why would she kidnap your housekeeper?”
“Because my housekeeper murdered your brother for trying to rape his own daughter,” Derek shouted. “Where is my fucking carriage?” Several carriages now blocked Derek’s. He was ready to roar with rage and kill someone himself. Cassandra was in danger. She needed him and he was going to fail her. He went to the large carriage at the front of the line. “Whose carriage is this?”
“Doesn’t matter,” the viscount said as he opened the door and motioned Derek and the others inside. “Better to beg forgiveness than to ask permission.”
“I like this viscount,” Nathaniel muttered as he shoved Col in and climbed in behind him.
“Here now,” a young boy called from the edge of the cobblestone lane. “You coves friends of Dickie Jones?”
“Yes!” Derek waved him over.
“Waterloo Bridge, me lord. They went to Waterloo Bridge. Dickie told me just before he climbed in the boot of the carriage.”
“Christ!” CB said with a groan.
The viscount tossed the boy a guinea and shouted at the astonished coachman sitting on the box. “Waterloo Bridge and don’t spare the horses.”
“But, my lord, I—”
“Do it or I’ll knock your arse off the box and drive this fucking thing myself.” Viscount Daily hauled himself into the carriage and barely had time to close the door before the driver set the horses off at the gallop.
“Told you I liked this viscount,” Nathaniel said.
Derek wanted to smile but could only stare out the window, his fists clenched on his knees. Waterloo Bridge. The Thames . Another woman in his care being fished out of those dank, disgusting waters. His breath burned in his lungs. Every beat of his heart hurt as if a knife were being plunged into his chest.
“Would someone like to explain why I am crowded into this carriage with a footman and four other gentlemen on my way to prevent my mother from harming someone who deserves a medal?” Viscount Daily asked in a dry, calm voice.