Chapter Twenty-One
“Back so soon, Your Grace? An unkind absence when your duchess must be reeling from the chaos of a new position and responsibilities,” Mrs. Dove-Lyon said as soon as Jackson had been admitted to her private parlor.
“My duchess has no need of my help,” Jackson said through gritted teeth before he thought better of the admittance. He didn’t want to think of Anna. Not when every fiber of his being ached to hold her close again.
“Share. You don’t know the meaning of the word.”
Jackson’s hands fisted at his sides until he couldn’t feel his fingers. Anna didn’t know how much he wanted to share. If he could, he would lay himself bare for her to accept or condemn, whatever she decided, because he trusted her. Because he cared for her to the point of self-destruction.
He should be here asking after the counterfeiters, seizing any opportunity to further uncover the identity of The Printer, but he’d had no intention of returning to his investigation when he’d stepped through the doors of the Lyon’s Den.
“It is because of my duchess that I am here,” he said, settling into his seat on the opposite couch.
Mrs. Dove-Lyon let out a heavy sigh. “You wish to know more of Lord Brixby’s disappearance.”
Jackson nodded, for once pleased the widow was so sharp on the uptake.
“I was led to believe the Bow Street Runners looked into the case but have had no success in locating my wife’s brother.
” A small lie—it was less leading and more Roberts breaking into the Runners’ offices off four Whitehall and acquainting himself with a filing room he’d colorfully described as “a stable without horseflesh.”
“Perhaps the wrong questions are being asked,” Mrs. Dove-Lyon said, as cryptic as ever.
Irritation scraped at the back of his neck. Subtle and probing weren’t working. “Do you know what has become of Lord Brixby?”
A pause.
“You’ve grown quite forthright since your nuptials, Your Grace,” Mrs. Dove-Lyon said.
Jackson grinned. “What can I say? My duchess is an excellent influence.”
“I was not responsible for his disappearance,” she said. Direct in kind.
Not direct enough.
He shot her another grin. “That isn’t what I asked, Mrs. Dove-Lyon.”
She offered a responding curve to those ruby lips through the veil. “No, it wasn’t.” She set down her teacup. Stalling, he imagined. But when she sat back in her chair, her voice was clear, unhesitant. “I have my suspicions of what became of Lord Brixby, but I have neither proof nor confirmation.”
Now wasn’t the time to hold back.
Jackson leaned forward. “I will pay handsomely for your suspicions.”
A laugh. Jackson imagined her brows hitting her hairline.
“Reckless last words if ever I heard any.” Her finger tapped the edge of the desk. Thinking? Calculating down to the pennies she could squeeze from him, no doubt.
But the next surprise was his as she continued, “Much as I would enjoy lightening your purse, Your Grace, this business over Lord Brixby’s disappearance has caused nothing but a headache for me.
If it would see the young lord home and put an end to this parade of uninvited guests, I will depart with my thoughts without regret. ” A flash of a smile. “Or receipt.”
“I’m listening.”
“Brixby’s cousin,” she said. “I hear Sir Daniel passed some weeks back and the son has inherited the title . . . and not much else.”
Jackson frowned. He’d heard nothing of the baronet’s death. “The man owed money?”
“Speculations gone wrong,” she clarified. “The baronet was all but penniless.” A knowing pause. “Left his son too poor to pay the butcher’s bill.”
Desperation was a powerful motive.
So was greed.
Inheriting a wealthy viscounty could go a long way in refilling a man’s coffers.
And thanks to Anna’s deal with Mrs. Dove-Lyon, William’s vowels had been shredded and burned.
Anna.
Jackson’s gut twisted. Anna was strong, loyal, but if her brother was the victim of foul play, the news would break her. She, who loved so fiercely.
Rap. Rap.
Both their heads turned toward the interior door.
“Enter,” Mrs. Dove-Lyon said.
An attendant stepped inside, her expression composed, the turban around her head a muted lavender. “Mr. Bogart is here as you requested, ma’am.”
“Thank you, Helena,” Mrs. Dove-Lyon said. “Show him in. The duke was just leaving.”
Jackson didn’t bother to linger. A quick bow to the woman in black, and his feet raced out the main door, across the hall, down the stairs, and into the back alley.
Mrs. Dove-Lyon’s suspicions may have been nothing. A fleeting bit of gossip and conjecture. Could be Mrs. Dove-Lyon thought to use this bit of news as a simple delay tactic to throw him off the scent of The Printer.
It didn’t matter.
A kernel of truth in every lie. A rule all good charlatans practiced.
Jackson’s feet ate up the ground, carrying him across the street to the stable to retrieve his horse. A toss of a coin to the stableboy. He swung up into his saddle and spurred the beast into a quick canter in the direction of Roberts’s apartments.
He’d need the man’s sleuthing skills—and possible fists—if Jackson’s inquiry into the cousin’s recent movements turned up suspect.
If there was the slightest chance the new baronet’s designs on his cousin’s title had turned into actions, Jackson would ferret out the man’s guilt. And if the man himself had harmed Anna’s brother—and by extension, Anna herself—he’d see the bastard bleed.
Anna was lost.
She’d been combing the streets for hours, talking to every painted lady, street urchin, and wayward gentleman this side of London.
The streets may not have frightened her, but she knew the dangers of the alleys and rookeries this time of night.
But as she’d gone on through the night—not a whisper of a man matching William’s description seen in the area—she’d gone farther and farther from the townhouse.
She trudged on, her feet aching, a chill in her bones, and any hopes of discovering a new lead into William’s disappearance dwindling as the hours crept closer to dawn and the streets grew deserted.
Whatever man Jackson had following her clearly did not see a need to step in and give her directions. And there wasn’t a chance in hell she’d call out loud and ask.
Hence, lost.
Not, lost lost. She was still in Westminster, surely. A glance at the building to her right, the sign some kind of scissor and comb in rusted iron and nothing familiar. Another look down the deserted street, too far from the small circle of light from the lamp to make out.
Anna threw her hands up in frustration. “Lamppost signs, is that so much to ask?”
She glanced at the misused things and tilted her head at a mark, there, about halfway up the post. Some kind of red smudge. “Ha!” she laughed at the expense of no one but herself. The lamplighters couldn’t even be bothered to clean off the metal while lighting.
Anna started down the next street, and another, studying the buildings as she passed for anything that looked familiar.
Something did look familiar; that same barber sign from before.
Great! She was going around in circles.
Taking a moment to rest against the nearest post, she leaned her head back and sighed. She needed to carry a map in her reticule.
Opening her eyes, she made to step away and frowned at an identical red smudge on the lamppost. But she’d been on the other side of the street when she’d come around the first time.
She glanced at the mirroring post across the thoroughfare.
No smudge.
She frowned and retraced her steps back to the first post. Instinct had her moving to the next. Another smudge. And another.
She followed the sidewalk, checking lampposts along the way. Some were smudged. Some were not.
Across another street, around a corner and—
There. The milliner’s shop she and Elise had stopped at after the modiste before she’d left for the country.
She stopped in front of the window, hats and ribbons on display with everything from dyed silk to peacock feathers. She hazarded another glance down the way.
Yes, the townhome with the blue door.
Smudges on every lamppost on both sides of the street now, like a runway leading her . . . home.
A tug on the heart in her chest.
Only one stupid liar would think to do this.
Jackson had left her a trail.
Clues to find her way home.
“I can’t tell you everything.”
Her chest pinched. If only he’d meant those words as a means to sever their relationship.
But she’d heard the distraction in his voice.
There was something more to his work with the Home Office, something he was terrified to confide. Jackson Cole was a terrible liar and always had been. How any agent for the Crown hadn’t seen that immediately either meant they were fools or desperate.
Or, perhaps, it was Anna who had been the fool.
Because she’d known from the beginning, he was more than some gentleman. Jackson Cole didn’t have it in him to sit idle, to be useless.
“I can’t tell you everything.”
When would she learn to see her own faults before condemning him for his? She had held things back from him too. Awful things.
Things he should know.
Things she needed to tell him.
But she hadn’t.
Because she was afraid of what he’d think of her afterward. Because she didn’t want him to think she was broken.
Because she wanted him to keep looking at her like she was everything.
“You were everything.”
Tears stung her eyes. Hours of exhaustion had drained all her anger, leaving only clarity.
Damn the man! He was her everything. Did he not understand that was why she was so angry? If he thought he could put himself in harm’s way every day and she’d give his cheek a kiss and wish him a good day on his way out the door, he was delusional!
She didn’t need the lampposts now as she picked up her skirts and ran down the street, around the corner, along the sidewalk, and up the Grandfellow townhouse’s front steps.
The front door was unlocked when she pushed it open. She took to the stairs and marched down the hall before throwing open the duke’s door.