Chapter 14
Chapter
Fourteen
Shortly before nine o’clock, Carrigan parked the barouche-landau at the edge of the coach field outside Vauxhall, along Kennington Lane.
The position gave them an unobstructed view of the other conveyances coming and going.
There weren’t many. In the few days since a body had been found at the pleasure gardens, Mr. Gye’s concern that such a thing would frighten off visitors had come to fruition.
The papers were reporting that the sale of entry tokens and season’s passes had decreased, and the nearly vacant coach field supported it.
It had been over an hour since Carrigan had parked them, and not one of the carriages that had arrived or departed had possessed an inverted cross stamped on the door. With every passing minute, Audrey found it more difficult to suppress her urge to stamp her foot and groan in frustration.
Hugh would be at the Red Lotus by then. It made perfectly good sense that she could not go with him to such a place. And if they were to close in on the Sanctuary and discover who had killed Bethany Silas, it also made perfectly good sense that they should split up. Divide and conquer, as it were.
But every time she pictured him walking into a house of ill repute, a vibration of anger and envy shook through her. It was absurd, and she despised the reaction. She was more mature than that. Too confident in Hugh and his morals. And yet, logic failed to disperse the feelings.
Sir leaned on the ledge of the open window, his cheek digging into his palm. “I’m getting hungry.”
“You just barely finished the biscuit that was squirreled away in your pocket,” Basil replied.
“That only made me hungrier.”
The two had been bickering since they, along with Carrigan at the reins, had driven away from Violet House. Hugh’s valet had become increasingly more dramatic with his sighs of boredom and annoyance too. I am a valet, he’d muttered several times, not an assistant inquiry agent.
Sir teased him about just missing his nightly tea and crumpets while he read romantic novels in bed. When Basil had denied the accusation, Sir had whipped out a copy of A Romance in the Forest by Ann Radcliffe from his own coat pocket. “Then what do you call this?”
Basil had tried snatching it away from Sir, complaining that the little pickpocket had no respect for privacy.
The bit of levity had only lasted until Basil had finally succeeded and stuffed the book back into his own pocket.
Then, they returned to watching for any sign of the inverted cross on passing carriages.
Audrey sighed. “This isn’t working.” Sitting still, in one spot, was entirely ineffective. She thought again of her idea to watch Sir Oliver Pendleton’s home, and to follow him should he leave. She probably did not possess the patience for that endeavor either.
“Maybe this Sanctuary place isn’t even around here,” Sir suggested.
“It is,” she replied. The vision she’d had of Mr. Comstock in the coach with the lights of Vauxhall’s coach field in the background had proved it.
But as Hugh was the only one who could know of that, she ticked off the reasons she was certain.
“Miss Silas met Mr. Comstock here for the first time. He took her here the day she disappeared. Her body was found near the Vauxhall stairs in the Thames. And the other bodies that were found—” She swallowed her next words.
Sir kept looking out the window, as if unaffected, but she knew he wasn’t.
“I’m sorry, Sir, we won’t speak of it.”
He shrugged. “It’s all right. We’ve got to if we’re going to figure out who snuffed my father.”
“We will figure it out.” She raised her voice. “Carrigan?”
“Yes, Your Grace?” He had remained seated in the driver’s box, just as many other drivers with the thankless task of waiting for their charges were.
“Can you take us around the streets here, relatively close to the pleasure gardens?”
He whistled and shook the reins and the carriage rolled from its spot.
“What are we looking for now?” Basil asked.
“The cross symbol and term ‘sanctuary’ puts me in mind of a religious element,” she said. “What if the secret society is being held inside a church? Or near one?”
“One that’s been shut up, you mean,” Sir said.
With a nod from Audrey, Sir doused the lamp in the carriage.
It allowed them to see better into the dark streets as Carrigan started to drive a wandering route along one street to the next.
The horses ambled slowly, giving them plenty of time to look.
There were lampposts along the streets in most places, and people were out.
But most of the buildings were residences.
“So, you and Lord Hugh are getting leg shackled soon, right?” Sir’s question startled Audrey from her peering through the window. Carrigan was taking them around the Oval off Devonshire Place.
“Hush,” Basil said. “That is none of your business.”
“It’s quite all right, Basil,” she said, then to Sir, “I believe so.”
She and Hugh had argued, yes, but she could not face the possibility that they would part ways because of it.
Audrey had already given some thought to the blending of their staffs, but in truth, Sir wasn’t a servant.
He was more along the lines of Hugh’s ward.
Which meant that he would be her ward now too.
She wondered how Sir felt about that. He was so accustomed to only having to follow Hugh’s edicts.
Audrey wasn’t sure what her role would be.
Sir already had a mother, one he cared for, and who cared for him as much as she possibly could.
Like so many other women of her class, Lucy Givens had limited resources when it had come to protecting her son from her abusive husband.
But now, she was a widow, and with three children younger than Sir.
Perhaps now that Mr. Givens no longer stood in his way, Hugh would be able to extend his generosity toward her too.
“Over there,” Basil said, interrupting Audrey’s half-formed idea of taking Mrs. Givens and her daughters from the East End and placing them somewhere nicer. Safer. And closer to Sir.
“What do you see?” she asked. But then, she saw it too. A stone church with a tall spire, and its front door boarded up. It looked to be in disuse.
“Carrigan, stop here,” she called. And when he did, she opened the door. Sir darted out first and held out his hand.
“Thank you,” she said as she let him guide her onto the pavement. A lamppost a dozen paces away shone, reflecting off the church’s lancet windows. A few were missing, and some scaffolding at the corner also appeared in shambles.
“I’m going to take a closer look,” she announced.
“At this ghastly place?” Basil asked.
“Someone should go with you.” Carrigan started to rise, but Audrey held up her hand.
“Stay with the carriage,” she said. “I’m not going far.”
“I’ll come,” Sir offered. She gave him a thankful grin, and then the two of them approached the church together.
With the front door boarded up, any entrance would have to be found at the side or back.
She went toward the abandoned scaffolding.
The shabby look of the church could be a deterrent, a disguise for passersby.
And perhaps the Sanctuary operated out of the vaults of the church, curbing the emission of any light and sound.
It would suit the room from her vision, which had been candlelit.
But as they started down the narrow alley flanking the church, any feeling of certainty shriveled. There was nothing here. No sign of people. Certainly, no inverted cross.
“Never mind,” she said, coming to a stop. “Let’s return to the carriage.”
Just then, a square-sided coach clattered past the opening in the alley behind the church, where a lamppost gave off yellow light. Stamped onto the coach’s door, a white inverted cross flashed into view, then out again as the coach went by.
Audrey held still. But then, she realized what she’d seen, and she dashed toward the alley opening, and the street running behind the church.
“Your Grace!” Carrigan shouted.
“Sir, hurry! That coach that just went by—”
“Had a cross like you said!” Sir finished for her.
They exited the alley and came into the street under the lamppost, just in time to see the back end of the coach carrying onward, past a cross street.
There was no time to go back to Carrigan and Basil.
She started after the coach on foot, with Sir at her side.
He quickly overtook her, his flat-soled boots far more suitable for running than hers with their little heels.
She could only hope that Carrigan would come looking for them in this direction.
Her breaths sawed in and out as she tried to keep up not just with the coach, but with Sir. The stays she wore dug into her ribs as she sucked in air, and water splashed up onto her hem as she darted through puddles. A handful of people out walking gasped with alarm as she and Sir flew past them.
The coach, visible by its guiding lanterns, turned right down another street and disappeared.
Audrey’s feet began to bruise, her lungs burned, and yet if she slowed to tend to herself, she knew she’d feel crushing disappointment.
Digging into a well of reserved determination, she reached the cross street only a few paces behind Sir.
They both drew to a stop, breaths heaving.
The street was empty. Not a single carriage was in view.
“But that’s impossible,” Audrey panted as her pulse continued to charge.
The carriage should have been somewhere along the long street stretching before them, considering the short length of time since it had turned.
“It must’ve gone down some alley,” Sir said. He walked briskly, and Audrey followed, ignoring the stitch in her side.
The alleys they passed were dark, and even though she considered dipping down into a few of them, good sense vanquished out the idea.
Hugh had accused her of being heedless before, and that it often led to danger.
She hated to admit he was right, and with Sir with her, she had a responsibility for him.
Leading him into some alley would not do.
A few carriages passed them, but none had the symbol. After a few minutes, she slowed. “The carriage must have turned off this street.”
Sir stopped and waited for her by the opening of yet another dark alley, this one gated.
The tall iron bars were set on hinges attached to a stone arch marking the alley entrance.
The gates were open, and as Sir held still, waiting for her to catch up, two men came through.
They were walking quickly. One knocked into Sir’s shoulder as he came around the corner of the gate.
“Watch it now, rat,” the man said as he kept walking.
“You’re the one who knocked into me,” Sir shot back.
The two men quit moving and turned to confront him. Audrey hurried forward.
“What’s that you said, rat?”
Both men were twice Sir’s size, and paired together, they circled him like vultures.
“That is quite enough of that,” Audrey said as she reached them. She slid around the taller of the two men and placed herself at Sir’s side.
“That’s enough of that, is it?” the man parroted back, mocking her. He stepped closer. Close enough for her to see his face. The gaslight from the nearest lamppost was just strong enough to illuminate him.
Audrey’s knees turned to jelly.
It was the man from both of her visions, the one who’d been warning Mr. Givens, and who had been seated across from Mr. Comstock, glaring.
Breathing thinly through her nose, she shifted her eyes to the other man.
She hadn’t seen him fully in the visions, but she recalled the slimmer build and beard.
She clutched Sir’s arm. He flinched at her touch.
“We have no quarrel with you,” she replied as evenly as she could. “It was an honest mistake.”
The man scratched his thumb across his chin. The motion, as benign as it was, appeared threatening. As if he was preparing for a brawl. “He should watch where he’s standing.”
“You should—”
Audrey cut Sir off. “Very good. We will be sure to do that. Good evening, gentlemen.”
She tugged Sir’s arm and began walking away from the two men. Her back prickled with the press of their stares, and she worried they were going to overtake them and obstruct their path away. But after several strides, and no resistance, Audrey allowed herself to breathe again.
“What was that?” Sir yanked his arm free. “Those two deserved a mouthful of knuckles.”
“They were dangerous men, Sir.” She sealed her lips against the truth that Sir could not have possibly bested both of them—whether they deserved a mouthful of knuckles or not.
She stared ahead. Gracious, where was Carrigan? They hadn’t run very far. He should be driving the lanes nearby in search of them.
Sir grumbled but none of his words were audible. She imagined he was embarrassed about being led away from a fight by a woman. Hiding behind a skirt was surely emasculating. But if Sir’s anger was the price she must pay for avoiding the two men from her visions, it was worth it.
She tossed a look over her shoulder. They hadn’t followed.
The gated entrance to the alley was now closed and the men were gone.
The steady clatter of wheels and tack lifted her spirits, and when she faced forward again, she saw Carrigan driving straight toward them.
Basil threw open the door once Carrigan had drawn to a stop.
“That was entirely too reckless,” the valet said.
“Awe, stuff it, Baz, we saw the white cross and had to follow. It’s why we’re out here to begin with.”
“Where is it now?” Basil asked.
“Who knows? We lost it,” Sir grumbled, still peeved.
She cast a look back toward the stone arched gate. “Actually, Sir, I don’t think we did.”