Chapter 21 #2
‘I’ll see you to your lodgings. I expect the tavern where they held the inquest has a room – you can find out more about that in the bar. Don’t go out on your own tonight.’
Alex laughed. ‘Sandys, we’re army veterans. I’m not going to let these people get to me – and nor are you. They would be fools to come at us again.’
Jacob couldn’t have Alex playing fast and loose with his security, not when he and Dora were responsible for him.
‘I haven’t seen a great deal of sense from them, only desperation, so please heed the warning.
I’ll take the next coach back from the tavern and will expect you to report in by tomorrow afternoon. Send word if something holds you up.’
Arrangements made, Jacob took an inside seat of the London-bound coach, submitting to being squeezed in between a bony clergyman and a well-padded matron. He would’ve preferred a seat on the roof, but they needed to keep as low a profile as possible.
As the coach rattled away, Jacob wondered if he was sitting in the same seat the murderer had occupied, hurrying away from the bloody scene. Or had they had their own carriage? Or left by boat?
There were too many questions, but he could not shake his gut feeling that Lorenzo had been killed by someone else and not his own hand. Would Dora agree?
Dora wasn’t in the office but had retired to her room.
Jacob slipped past the Argus of a landlady who was fortunately gossiping with neighbours by her stove and paid him no heed.
Tiptoeing upstairs in stockinged feet, boots in hand, he tried the door.
Locked. Good. Dora was taking her safety seriously. He knocked gently.
‘Who is it?’
‘Me.’
There was a scuffling on the other side and the door cracked open. ‘Me? So you aren’t a crazed killer coming to shut me up?’
‘I don’t think so. I have other far more pleasurable activities in mind.’
‘You’d better come in then.’ With a smile, she opened the door, looking delectable in her nightgown and robe, hair tumbled around her shoulders. ‘What did you find in Barnes?’
Sitting propped up on the bedhead with her snuggled to his side, Jacob filled her in on the details of their visit, including the decision to leave Alex behind for the auction. ‘You approve?’
She nodded. ‘We have to take some risks, or they will have achieved their aim.’
‘I keep running the events of that bloody morning in my head, trying to see which explanation best fits. If it were a plot by the French, would the comte not be more suspicious of those who he invited into his home? Would he not use all his intelligence and connections to check that someone was genuinely an ally and not an enemy? He strikes me as having been too wily a man, lasting over a decade as an analyst of foreign affairs, to make such a basic mistake.’
‘But love, or passion, can blind a man to a woman’s faults. Perhaps his lover, invited upstairs for more intimate matters, was the one planted by Napoleon in his circle?’
Jacob curled his lip. ‘It does seem poor taste to have her there while his wife was next door, even if she came and went by the servants’ staircase.’
‘Then perhaps the comte and comtesse had an understanding that they could both play with other partners?’
‘No servants’ staircase in her room.’
‘She might have lost the appetite for intrigue and contented herself with her music and her other pursuits. From what I see, men are slower to give up lovers than women, with many a frisky old goat still indulging in amours in his eighties.’
‘We’ll see what Alex finds out. How was your evening?’
Dora stroked his chest. ‘I played cards with Ruby.’
‘She’s well?’
‘Very comfortably settled in her nest.’
‘What did she say about us?’
‘She apologised for the newspaper article. We agreed not to harm each other’s prospects if we can avoid it.’ Dora tapped him. ‘And before you say anything, I did not agree to anything, nor did she.’
‘Then you will marry me?’
‘Still thinking about it.’
If he had to be like the woodpecker, chipping away until he had made a hole in her defences, then he would do so. ‘I wouldn’t have to creep past your landlady with my boots in my hand if we were wed.’
‘Is that so much of a hardship? Does it not add spice to our love affair?’
He chuckled softly. ‘You, my dear, are a very Hindoustanee dish of delights.’ He moved to kiss her.
She let her lips cling to his before pulling back. ‘You know the visitor is calling?’
‘I do. I’m a doctor. And when I see a lady suffering from bellyache and feeling tetchy, I am able to diagnose the cause. What a marvel. Have you forgotten I am a bundle of bruises, so hardly up to much myself? Would you welcome my company in bed? I know I’d like to have you in my arms.’
She nodded. ‘That I can manage.’
They settled down on the pillow. ‘Have you taken anything for your pain?’
‘No.’
‘Good. Laudanum—’
‘Is a slippery slope. I am aware.’
He made to get up again, thinking his bedside manner could do with some work. ‘I could make you willow bark tea.’
She pulled him back. ‘And risk Mrs Jones detecting your presence under her roof? No, thank you. Being with you will take away the pain as well, if not better.’
They spooned together on the narrow bed. He spread his hand over her lower belly to help ease the cramp. ‘Better?’
‘Yes.’
‘Just think, every night like this if we marry.’ Tap-tap. Tap-tap. The woodpecker was not giving up.
‘I’ll add that to the considerations,’ she muttered before they fell asleep together.