Chapter Seventeen
Jackson slammed the stable doors open. “Mr. Hawks!”
His stablemaster poked his head out of the back office. “Your Grace?” The man came fully into the stable, bits of straw clinging to his brown workman’s trousers. “You were meant to be halfway to London by now.”
He was in no mood to satisfy curiosities. “Did any of the wedding guests come down to view the stables?” There were at least a dozen that had attended the ceremony, including Mrs. Dove-Lyon.
Mr. Hawks shook his head. “No, Your Grace. All hands know the worth of your stock. The staff was informed any guest who made it as far as the stable was to be escorted back to the house so there’d be no chance of anyone losing their way.”
Grandfellow Estate was a thousand acres, after all. Give or take a few hundred.
Jackson’s increasing opinion of his staff didn’t diminish the need for justice coursing through his veins.
“What of other visitors? Have there been any neighbors who’ve dropped by of late? Any characters looking for work on the estate? Any new vendors?”
Mr. Hawks was seasoned with his employer’s abrupt questions. And the expectation of expedient answers. “New hire started about two weeks ago,” he said. “A young man with a talent for horses.”
Two weeks.
A talent for sabotaging carriages as well, Jackson imagined. “Where is this young man?”
Hawks’s face pinched. “Up and quit this morning. Didn’t even wait for his last wages.” But Jackson didn’t employ the older man simply because he was an equine whisperer. Hawks’s eyes narrowed. “What’s the man done?”
Jackson didn’t pull his punch. “Near cut the axle clean through so it cracked while the duchess and I were going at full speed.”
Hawks’s face paled. “Cut the axle? Why would someone do that?”
Because they’d known—they’d watched—that Jackson always gave his horses the freedom to run. “Once you give me the man’s name, I will garner the answer.” By any means necessary.
If Roberts was correct, a cut axle could very well have been the work of the gang from London.
Whether the counterfeiters had gotten wise to his investigation, or the case of Anna’s missing brother was more sordid than it had first appeared, Jackson would see this new hire interrogated and locked up.
Hawks ran a hand through his hair. “Hobbs, Your Grace.” His gaze took on new weight as it made a perfunctory sweep of Jackson’s person, resting a fraction longer on his bandaged thigh and the blood matting his dark hair.
Seeming to realize any concern on his behalf would be taken ill, he asked instead, “Is the duchess—”
“Aside from a few bruises, she is well.” The way she’d been nursing her arm on the walk back, Jackson had known brief horror thinking the bone had dislocated but soon realized the muscles were only bruised, deeply.
Mr. Hawks crossed himself. “Thank the Almighty for that.” His jaw hardened. “I’ll accept any punishment, Your Grace. If the man is truly the villain, then it was my fool sense that hired him.”
“Save your sense. I want the man’s description. Now,” Jackson demanded.
Gratitude shone in the other man’s eyes. “Medium height. Medium build. Brown hair. Brown eyes. Looks the same as any other bloke.”
The perfect non-descript look for any good spy.
“Hobbs has got to be near London on the mail coach by now.” Mr. Hawks shook his head, his shoulders slumping. “Unlikely to see him again, Your Grace.”
Jackson smiled, quite sure it would take the Devil himself to outrun swift justice. “We’ll see.”
Mr. Hawks had the good sense to look unnerved.
It took one hour to run the mail coach down.
Jackson’s horse hadn’t even come to a full stop before he dropped to the ground, tossed a coin to the mail driver for the inconvenience, and ripped the coach door open.
Three occupants stared with wide eyes. One woman. Two men. One with flax hair, the other a most common shade of brown.
“You.” Jackson grabbed the brown-haired man by the collar, his head pounding at the sudden movement. “We’ve things to discuss, you and I, Hobbs.”
He didn’t wait for the man to descend gracefully. Jackson dragged Hobbs into the road and called for the coach to drive on.
The driver didn’t need a second order. A quick slap of the reins, and he and Hobbs were left alone on the dusty road.
Scrambling behind him.
Jackson didn’t bother turning around. “Flee, and I will hunt you down like a dog.”
The rustling stopped.
“Let me be clear,” Jackson said, his gaze on the mail coach as it became a distant speck.
“I did not chase down that coach to ask if you had anything to do with the sabotaged buggy. I came to ask simple, basic questions. So simple, in fact, that if you were to lie to me, I would grow quite angry.” He turned, slow and with full knowledge of how the movement would appear calculating.
“You wouldn’t want to anger me, would you, Hobbs? ”
The man—boy—couldn’t have been more than seventeen. Wide-eyed and rightfully terrified, Hobbs nodded.
Jackson smiled. “Good. Now . . .” His voice dropped.
“Was the duchess your target?” The words were acid in his mouth.
If this was but the first attempt, there would be others.
He’d left Anna in her chambers with three footmen standing guard in the hall.
She’d been too busy fussing over his head wound as they’d walked back to Grandfellow Hall to ask questions.
Then, when they’d reached the estate, exhaustion had clung to every line of her body, but as soon as she regained her spirit, there’d be no stopping that sharp mind of hers from working, demanding, answers.
He should have assigned five footmen.
The boy shook his head adamantly.
“Words,” Jackson ordered.
Hobbs jumped. His voice was little more than a squeak when he said, “Wasn’ supposed ta be anyone but you. They’s told me ta fix your saddle, but yous never went riding. When the stablemaster called for the buggy to come ’round, I saw me chance.”
Tension eased out of his chest.
No one was coming after Anna. Which meant the boy had been hired by the counterfeiting ring. A sad excuse for an assassin, and an act that smelled of desperation.
Jackson would’ve howled triumphantly at the evidence that he was snipping at the ring’s heels, but Anna had come too close to harm for any premature celebrations of victory.
Mercy was for men less infatuated with their wives.
A fact he’d admitted to himself as he’d near lamed his favorite stallion pursuing this wretched bastard.
Jackson took the boy by the collar again and said without artifice, without mask, without forgiveness, “If my wife had come to permanent harm, I would have flayed you alive and let the birds pick at your exposed innards with no thought for how loud you screamed.” Who needed Greek mythology when a man had imagination?
The boy paled.
Jackson smiled without humor, knowing the boy would take nothing to crack. “Then again, you did nearly hobble my favorite pair of mares.”
Hobbs clutched his sleeve. “Please, guv! Don’ leave me ta the birds. I ’ad no choice. Thems that made me do it.”
“Give me the names, boy, before I call the local magistrate. I believe attempted murder of a duke is a hanging offense.” Jackson set the boy back on his two feet and patted his shoulder. “At least it’ll be a quick death.”
Hobbs dropped to his knees and brandished his clasped hands like a repentant club. “Please, no. Please. Please. I’ll tell ya anythin’ ya want ta know.”
“The name!”
Hobbs pulled at his hair. “I don’ know the names. They never gave me none. Just some alias. The code ta use at the meetin’ place when me job was done.”
Jackson’s spine went rigid. Meeting place. Code name.
“Tell me,” he said, anger and vengeance spiking through him at how close he stood to seeing these men pay.
“There’s a pub in Southwark, Hogs Huff. I was ta ask the barkeep fur a Flash of Lightning without the thunder.”
A play on words to order a glass of gin.
Jackson forced the phrase to memory and demanded, “And the code name you’d receive in return?”
Hobbs swallowed, his throat working, as if fear of the ring even in his current situation made him hesitate. “Printer,” he said at last, his wide eyes glazed in fear. “The code in return is ‘The Printer.’”