Chapter Twenty-One
When Lady Caindale worriedly assured Jack that her husband was still away attending to his cotton mill, Jack headed north to Manchester, where the man in question might be found.
On the road again, driving his curricle, Jack gained that sense of freedom he’d missed.
It was almost a relief to remove himself from the intense situation that had surrounded the marquess.
Especially when he hadn’t done as promised and found the murderer.
And there was no sense in thinking of Althea, although he did, constantly, with a sense of frustration and deep yearning.
It was for her that he persisted with this, despite his fear that what he might discover about her uncle would devastate her family.
Two days later, he rode into smoky Manchester and made his way to Salford on the River Irwell, where Lord Caindale’s cotton mill was found. Jack had little expectation of finding him there.
At the mill, no smoke rose from the chimneys atop the seven-story brick building.
Jack dismounted and entered the huge space.
The mill was impressive, with floors for spinning and weaving cloth.
Gas lighting had been installed. There should have been a hub of activity, but the spinning mules were unattended, the workers absent.
Beyond the open back door, the river flowed past, the dank smell seeping in.
Someone had been here. Were they still here?
There was no sign of Lord Caindale, but Jack’s neck prickled, and he resisted calling out to him.
A scuffling noise made him swing around in time to see a man dart out of sight at the far end of the long room.
He ran in that direction. A strangled sound came from what must have been the office.
Caindale! He bolted through the door and balked at the sight that greeted him.
Lord Caindale, strung up from a beam, still alive, his legs kicking uselessly in the air.
Jack pulled the knife from his boot and kicked the box there closer.
He jumped up onto it and cut the dying man loose from the rope, which was wrapped tightly around his neck.
The baron fell limply into Jack’s arms, barely breathing, his scarlet face suffused with blood.
“Can you speak?” Jack laid him on the floor and eased away the corded noose from his bruised throat. “Who did this?” He removed the man’s cravat.
His lordship opened his bloodshot eyes and coughed, struggling for breath. “The… Frenchman…” he rasped. “Renard.”
“I’ll get him, don’t worry.”
With a gasp, Lord Caindale closed his eyes.
Jack searched for a pulse. He found a faint beat.
With a curse, he rose and strode back through the mill in search of water, tucking his knife away and then cocking his pistol.
The man could still have been lurking nearby.
As Jack walked the length of the cavernous space, his gaze raked the shadowy corners behind the latest machinery to which the Luddites objected so violently. Nothing moved.
He’d almost reached the outer door to the river when a gunshot rang out. The ball tore through Jack’s sleeve, burning into his flesh. He dived to the floor, rolled, and came up in a crouch. Creeping forward, he viewed the mill floor from behind a wooden bench.
Silence, but for the scuffle of rats along the riverbank.
As Jack rounded the edge of a table, another shot bit a piece off the wooden post too close for comfort, sending shafts of timber flying. A piece of wood struck Jack’s cheek. He cursed under his breath and backed away.
“Give yourself up, monsieur! You can walk out of here safely. I have no quarrel with you.”
Jack remembered Lord Caindale’s words. A voice like hoarfrost. The perfect description of the chilly rasp.
He braced his back against the wood, listening.
A soft shuffle, moving closer. Then an indrawn breath, a whisker away from him.
Blood trickled down onto Jack’s hand, and his arm throbbed as he crawled in the opposite direction on his hands and knees.
It had grown quiet, so he risked peering around the edge of the bench.
There the villain was. A lean man with dark hair. He braced against a pillar ten feet or so away, intent on reloading his pistol, his olive-skinned face in profile.
Jack leaped to his feet and ran straight at him. The man looked up, his eyes wide with shock, but before he could bring up his arm and aim his pistol, Jack knocked it out of his hands. Jack dug his own gun into the Frenchman’s narrow ribcage. “Who are you?”
Hard, brown eyes observed him. “One might ask you the same thing, monsieur.”
“I am a friend of Butterstone’s.” Jack took his measure. The brutal face of a dangerous man, his body coiled to attack. Like a cornered rat glancing left and right, he’d use everything at his disposal to escape.
“The marquess has too many friends.” He bit out the words.
“You killed him and almost killed Caindale. Why?”
“Ah, Caindale still lives,” Renard said with a contemptuous stare. “Butterstone discovered our plan to assassinate Bonaparte. Even now, after his death, discovering the truth could bring down some important people.”
“You poisoned him?”
“Now that you cannot accuse me of. I never met Bonaparte.”
“Who do you work for?”
He shrugged narrow shoulders. “A powerful figure connected to the Bourbons. It would be wise of you to resist getting involved in this affair. The matter should be dropped, left obscured from history.”
Conscious of Lord Caindale’s need for his help, Jack pocketed Renard’s gun. With a prod to the man’s torso, he gestured toward the office. “Walk.”
“What do you intend to do with me?”
“Keep quiet and move.” Jack pondered what to do with him. It would be difficult to get him back to Bascombe in London. But if he handed him over to the Manchester magistrate, this business would become public knowledge. That would be unwise.
In the office, Lord Caindale still lay stretched out on the floor, but he breathed more normally, an arm resting over his eyes.
“You’re like a cat with nine lives, Caindale. Merde, you’re hard to kill,” the Frenchman said dispassionately.
With the gun at his back, Jack nudged him into the room. “Why kill him?”
“He’s weak. Threatened to confess everything in Parliament.”
“That’s not weak,” Jack said. “It would take great courage.”
The baron removed his arm and sat up. He stared at them with bloodshot eyes. “You don’t need to worry about me, Ryder. I’m all right now,” he said, his voice a guttural bark.
As he climbed unsteadily to his feet, he staggered.
Lightning fast, the Frenchman leaped forward, grabbed Lord Caindale, and swung him between himself and Jack, an arm around his hostage’s neck.
A knife had slipped from his sleeve, and he held it to Lord Caindale’s throat.
“Drop the gun. Then I shall leave here, and you can forget we ever met.”
Jack cursed. He was growing soft; he should have searched him. “Reasonable of you. How can I resist?”
“Don’t listen to him, Ryder,” Lord Caindale said. “He’s killed Butterstone and the maid and won’t have any qualms about killing you. You can’t trust him.”
Renard bared his teeth in a snarl. “Both deaths were necessary, and you’ll be next.” His blade nicked Lord Caindale’s throat, and beads of blood ran down his neck.
“Kill him, and you’re dead too, Renard,” said Jack.
“I’ll take my chances, monsieur. Pistols can misfire. Or you may not be such a good shot, although I would be foolish to believe it. Drop it.”
Jack dropped the pistol at his feet, not willing to take the chance that the Frenchman would dig his knife into Caindale’s throat. The whites of Renard’s eyes revealed his panic. He’d made a serious error of judgment. Maybe his first, and possibly his last.
Renard edged toward the door, dragging Lord Caindale with him as a shield.
Before the pair reached it, Lord Caindale’s knees buckled, and he went down.
With a foul curse, the Frenchman raised the knife over the helpless man at his feet.
Jack snatched up the pistol and fired from a crouch.
The deafening sound boomed around the space as crimson blood spread across Renard’s forehead.
With shock widening his eyes, he crumpled to the floor.
Lord Caindale rose slowly to his feet. He stood looking down at the Frenchman. He nudged him with his boot. “Dead as a burned-out cinder.”
“You said there were two men, my lord. The man who held up your coach and brought you back to London? Who is he?”
“Lies, all lies, designed to put you off,” Lord Caindale said with a sad pull of his mouth.
“There was only one. Renard was a convincing talker with the promise of enough blunt to get this mill up and running after typhus wiped us out. I’m in debt for thousands, a debt that increases every week.
My role in this affair was merely to pave the way for a maid to join Butterstone’s household and search his luggage for evidence of his intention to expose the plot to kill Bonaparte.
” He sighed, his forehead creased with pain.
He put a finger to the cut on his injured throat, which had turned his shirt collar red. “And I agreed to do it.”
Jack picked up the baron’s cravat and held it out to him.
“Press this against the wound and sit down somewhere outside while I deal with the body. It’s better that no one finds it.
Then we’ll fetch a surgeon and hire a carriage to take you home.
Lady Caindale is beside herself with worry, and so is your niece.
You are fortunate to have such a loving family. ”
“I am.” Lord Caindale found his hat and placed it on his head, his voice shaking. “It’s more than I deserve.”
Jack couldn’t argue with that. He hefted Renard’s body up over his shoulder and headed for the door.