Chapter Twenty-Three
W orry ate at her all during the short train ride, but Kara pulled in a deep breath as they disembarked. Think. Focus. Find Harold. Then find Petra. They could do this.
She felt nearly fully recovered from her dose of opium. Perhaps the chill in the air helped. She hadn’t drifted off, even with the sway of the train. Turner, however, had begun to fade, and he whitened a little more with each step along the platform.
Nudging Niall, she nodded toward her oldest friend. He followed her hint. He ran an assessing gaze over the older man, then gave her a return nod.
“Let’s head straight out for the line of hacks,” she said, taking Turner’s arm and moving off at a slower pace than she normally would have used. “Niall and Dalton can bring our bits of luggage and meet us there.”
Once they made their way outside, she allowed Turner to hail a hackney. They stood next to it as the others caught up to them.
“All right now,” Niall began with authority. “Here is when we split up. Turner, you go straight to Stayme’s. Inform him of Harold’s disappearance.”
“And Gyda,” Kara interjected.
“And Gyda,” Niall repeated. “The viscount’s network should be familiar with the boy. They can check in at all of Harold’s usual London haunts. Make sure they know we are covering Preston’s work and home.”
“If Stayme has found any information on who Petra might be targeting, then I imagine Gyda will leave Harold to us and waste no time setting out in pursuit,” Kara said.
“If she hasn’t gone out already,” Niall said dryly.
“It’s a lot of pieces to juggle.” Kara turned to Turner. “It will help if you stay at Stayme’s for now and act as coordinator. We will all report in to you. You can send out vital information to the right parties as needed.”
Turner knew what she was doing. She could see it in his eyes. But he merely nodded, which told her he felt as bad as she suspected, which made her worry more.
“Don’t take too long to send word of what you find,” the butler cautioned before he climbed in the hack.
“We’ll join you at Berkeley Square as soon as we can.”
The cab started off, and Niall waved for another to move up. “Dalton, Preston’s rooms are at—”
“No,” Kara interrupted. “You and I have to split up, Niall.” He started to object, but she raised a hand. “Dalton doesn’t know Preston from the prince. We need someone who knows the man at each site. Dalton can come with me to Westminster. You head over to his rooms.” She paused, thinking. “If Preston is not there, stay and keep watch. We will do the same. If you do find him or Harold, then come to find us once you’ve figured out what is going on.”
“I don’t like separating from you,” Niall said with a frown. “You’ve had two close calls with that woman in as many days.”
“I’ll watch over her,” Dalton assured him. “If that Scot woman shows her face, she will be too busy dealing with me to worry over the duchess.”
Niall started to speak, but then shook his head. “Fine. If anything goes wrong, head straight to Stayme’s. I’ll find you there.”
“Agreed.” She read the concern in his face and burrowed into his arms.
He held her tight. She never wanted to leave the warmth and love he wrapped around her, but Harold was out there, likely trying to prove his bravery and worth. She needed to find him and convince him that they already knew both. That he proved himself every day with his contagious laugh, his kind heart, his willing work ethic, and his eagerness to learn. “We will find him, won’t we?” she whispered. “She doesn’t have him?”
“Unlikely. Not yet. It’s Preston that worries me now.”
“He wouldn’t hurt him, surely,” she protested. She could not have read the man so wrong.
“No. Not in the normal course of things. But if he is forced to weigh Harold’s safety against Tom’s?” Niall shrugged.
Hearing it said out loud made it easier to step away. “Let’s go, then. We need to find Preston before he has to make such a choice.”
She kissed Niall fiercely and climbed in the cab. Dalton followed, and the hack set out for Westminster. It was not a long trip. Kara directed the driver to let them down right near the construction entrance they had used before. As Dalton paid the driver, she approached the gated entrance.
“Good morning,” she said brightly, relieved to find the same porter stationed there. “I see you are having a bit of a slower day today.”
The porter blinked. “Duchess!” he said after a moment. “Yes. Not so many deliveries today. But have you come to visit with Mr. Preston again, ma’am? Or have you another appointment?”
“I’m afraid I’m here to see Mr. Preston, please. It seems our business is not quite finished.” She smiled at the man. “But I promise not to take up too much of his time.”
He frowned. “Stars above, but the man has had a stream of visitors, hasn’t he? I’m sorry to disappoint you, Your Grace, but Mr. Preston is not here at the moment. He got word from one of the quarries and had to go straight out.” He shook his head. “It seems as if there is trouble with the type of stone they are using in the royal entrance hall of the tower. I hope it doesn’t put them too far behind schedule.”
“Oh dear. How distressing for Mr. Preston.” Tilting her head at the man, she gave him a smile. “Did he happen to mention what time he would be back?”
“Oh, no. He wouldn’t keep me informed of his comings and goings, ma’am.”
Kara allowed herself to look dismayed. “I beg your pardon if I misspoke.”
“No, ma’am. Not at all. Not at all.” The porter blinked. “Oh, but I did hear Mr. Preston tell one of the masons that it would be late this evening before he made it back, if at all. The mason had concerns about the calculations for the stone needed for the storage room floors. There will be ever so many of them, ma’am, for the King’s Tower will eventually house all of the Parliamentary records, stretching all the way back for years and years.”
“How interesting,” Kara told him. “Oh well. I suppose I will have to come back, if Mr. Preston does not mean to return until late.”
“If at all, miss. We might not see him until morning.”
“I suppose it cannot be helped.” Kara started to turn away, but stopped to face the porter again. “You said that Mr. Preston has had several visitors recently?”
“Aye, miss. You and the duke were the first, but there has been a steady stream of them since. Sir Charles Barry himself come around to speak to him, ma’am. I admitted him myself and heard him complimenting our progress.”
“How gratifying,” Kara said with approval. “If I might ask…” She pulled Sculley’s sketch of Petra from her bag. “Was this lady one of Mr. Preston’s visitors?”
The porter’s eyes narrowed. “She was, at that.”
“When did she visit, if you can recall?”
“Oh, I won’t soon forget her. She came yesterday, and let me tell you, she had no encouraging words for any of us. Insistent, she was, and more than a bit nasty with it.”
“Sounds right,” Dalton muttered.
“Thank you. You’ve been so helpful,” Kara said warmly to the porter. “I’ll be sure to mention it to Mr. Preston.”
The man brightened. “Thank you, ma’am! I would like to get a better assignment. Assistant foreman, or something like. I’m sure I could do a decent job of it, and a good word can’t hurt.”
“Good day to you.”
Dalton offered his arm. Kara took it, her mind whirling while they walked away. “So Petra leaves Chiswick for London yesterday morning. She stops in here to see Preston, then goes back to ‘tie up loose ends.’”
Dalton snorted. “A nice way of saying she meant to kill me.”
“Last evening, she told the Russian that she took care of obtaining the missing piece to their device and—punished an old enemy at the same time.” She stopped walking. “She must have tasked Preston with obtaining whatever they are missing. It makes sense, doesn’t it?”
Dalton gestured to the massive construction going on behind the wall. “An engineer, in charge of a project like that? He could likely obtain all manner of odd or dangerous things.”
Kara started walking again. “But one of the first things Preston does is visit Tom Hawkins, who promptly leaves his hiding spot.”
“Scared away?” Dalton asked. “Or forced away?”
“Niall was right. Petra must have threatened Tom.” She started striding faster. “Come, we have to tell him. There’s no use hanging around here waiting for Preston if he doesn’t mean to return until late.”
“We are going to the duke, then?”
“It’s not far,” Kara told him. “It will be faster to walk. Let’s go.”
*
No one answered when Niall knocked on the door of Preston’s rooms. He waited a moment and knocked again. “Preston?” he called.
All lay quiet.
“Tom Hawkins?” he said even louder. “It’s Sedwick. I’m looking for Harold.”
No answer.
Giving in to frustration, Niall gave the door a thundering pounding, to no avail. With a sigh, he turned and left the building. He would find a vantage point nearby where he could wait and watch.
He hoped Kara was having better luck.
“Niall?”
Joy and relief flooded through him. “Harold!”
The boy was crossing the street, running toward him. With a whoop, Niall scooped the lad up into a crushing embrace.
He felt Harold stiffen a moment in surprise, before the lad squeezed him back.
Letting out a whoosh of relief, Niall released him, not wanting to overly compromise the growing boy’s dignity. “Thanks be to all of the gods. You scared us witless, lad.”
“How did you even know I was gone?” the boy asked, baffled.
“Turner.”
“Oh.” Harold seemed to take it for granted that Turner could be responsible for all things difficult or miraculous.
Because it was so often true.
“What happened?” Niall asked. “What are you doing here? Did Preston force you to come?” For the first time, he really looked at the boy. “And what in blazes are you wearing?”
Harold curled his hands proudly around the tattered edges of his bedraggled coat. “Beggar’s clothes,” he answered proudly. “I’m in disguise.”
“So I see. Where did you get such an…authentic disguise?”
“Off an old mate of mine. I gave him enough coin for a couple of nights in a dosshouse, and in exchange, he let me borrow his coat, hat, and blanket.” The boy looked up and down the street. “Come on,” he urged Niall. “I’ll show you the spot I’ve been watching from.”
Niall followed him back to the other side of the street. “Well, if you are watching Preston, then I must surmise that he didn’t force you to leave Bluefield.”
“Oh, no!” The boy sounded proud and excited. “He don’t even know I saw him there, but I came upon him in the grounds, stickin’ to the shadows, sneakin’ his way to the lab.” Harold stopped and ducked into a narrow alley between two homes. He took a deep breath and made an effort to drop the street slant to his words. “I’m watching from here. It’s got a good view of the front of the house.” He raised a hand. “And before you ask, there is a gate in the back garden that leads into an alley, but only the landlady has a key. She doesn’t want her boarders going in or out that way. She likes to keep track of them.” He grinned. “I’ve been thorough. Just the way you taught me.”
Niall knew he had never given Harold lessons in surveillance, but he hadn’t had to. If the lad applied the lessons he learned from them to the skills he’d learned in his early life, well, he would likely become a force to be reckoned with as he grew. “And how did you discover the landlady’s preferences?”
Harold shrugged. “People like to talk. Especially about their neighbors.”
Hiding a grin, Niall glanced back toward Preston’s lodging house. “Well, tell me all, then. What happened after you found Preston skulking toward the lab?”
“I listened when he went in to talk with Tom.” Harold raised a defensive hand. “He was definitely skulking, and he had not gone to the house to announce himself, so I didn’t feel guilty about it.”
“And what did you hear?”
“He didn’t want Tom to stay at Bluefield. He said Petra must surely be having the place watched. Preston told him that the woman had come to him, making threats against Tom.”
“What was Tom’s response?”
“Tom didn’t want to hear it. He had no wish to leave. Leastways, not until Preston told him he might be putting everyone at Bluefield in danger. Then he agreed to go, but he didn’t like a bit of it. Preston said he knew a place to hide him.”
“So they went, and you followed?”
“I wanted to know where Tom would be.” Harold hesitated. “And there was something else.”
Niall waited while the lad gathered his thoughts.
“There was something about the way Preston spoke about Petra Scot. Something in his voice. He sounded…upset. Tom heard it, too. He asked about it, more than once, but Preston put him off. I needed to make sure Preston wasn’t going to turn Tom over.”
“He didn’t, did he?” Niall asked, alarmed.
“No. They took the train back to London. I followed. Preston took him all the way to Greenwich, to a little house there. Tom must have kept on at him, asking about Petra, ’cause they were having a row over it when they left their hack to go in.” Harold shrugged. “At least it made it easy to jump off the back and hide.”
“A row?” Niall asked, thinking.
“A big one. Preston was that worked up about it. I have no choice, he was shouting. If I fail, you die. Do you understand ?”
Niall sighed. “I was afraid it would be something like that.”
“They were still arguing when they went in the house, but Preston must have convinced Tom, ’cause only he came out later.”
“You followed him again?”
“Yes, but he only came back here. I knew Slanted Nick had a spot pretty close, so I went and traded him for his night rig and came back to watch.”
Niall cringed at the thought of Slanted Nick being eager to seize the opportunity for a couple of nights at a dosshouse—usually a run-down place where men, women, and children paid for the cost of sleeping packed in together, out of the weather but most often on wafer-thin mats, or the floor. “We’ll see what we can do for Nick once we’ve dealt with Petra, but did Preston leave home again?”
“Not until this morning, when he went to Westminster. He didn’t stay long, though. He took a mount from the stables there and rode out.” Harold’s shoulders drooped. “There was no way for me to keep up with him then, so I came back here to wait.”
“You did a fine—” Niall stopped and gestured across the street. “Look there.”
Kara was striding down the pavement. Beside her, Dalton looked like he was struggling to keep up.
“Go and meet her, lad. She’s been worried about you.”
With a grin, Harold ran across to intercept her.
Kara gave a cry of joy at the sight of him and snatched him up for a long hug—and, by the sounds of it, a bit of a scolding.
“But I am fine,” Harold protested.
Chuckling, Niall went to rescue the lad and greet his wife. They all spent a moment exchanging news, and they introduced Dalton to Harold.
“I’ve been a bundle of nerves,” Kara told Harold afterward, squeezing his shoulders. “But you did well. Now listen, we need to send word of all of this back to Turner, Stayme, and Gyda. You have had a night out in the cold, so you will take the report back. Tell them everything. Get warm for a bit. Get fed. Get rested.”
Before he could protest, she took both of his hands. “We will watch for Preston’s return, but be sure to replenish yourself. Things are going to come to a head, and we will need all hands on deck.”
Harold straightened. “I’ll be ready.”
“I know you will. Now, hurry back to Berkeley Square.”
Kara leaned into Niall as they watched him go. She glanced up, looking both sad and proud. “He’s scarcely a boy anymore,” she said.
“No. We need to adjust. We cannot stifle him, but for today, Stayme will find a way to occupy him.”
“As he did for you?”
“Hopefully, he’ll have better luck with Harold. But in the meantime”—he gestured toward the lodging house—“we wait.”
“Yes, but not in the cold. I have my tools. I’m sure I can get us into Preston’s rooms.”
Dalton rubbed his hands together. “That’s the best news I’ve heard all day.”
Niall was just reaching for the small gate when Kara spoke. “Niall, look.”
It was Preston, walking toward them. His attention appeared to be focused on the tall box he carried. He didn’t seem to notice them until he had grown quite close, but when he looked up and spotted them, he gave a moan.
“Damn you all for meddling fools. Stay there,” he cried when Niall took a step toward him. “Don’t come closer. Don’t touch me at all. I cannot drop this box, do you understand? It would ruin everything.”