Chapter 21
Miles stood beside the fireplace in the drawing room as Flora Brent gave an account of her abduction to Inspector Garrick. In other circumstances, Miles would be listening to her tale as avidly as the policeman was. But not on this occasion.
No.
His attention was entirely fixed on Nell.
He’d returned home early from the office today, after a brief stop at a jeweler’s shop in Bond Street, to find his alarmingly pale wife seated with unnatural stiffness on the drawing room sofa.
She hadn’t been alone. Mrs. Royce was with her, along with Gabriel, Inspector Garrick, and (to Miles’s astonishment) the formerly missing Miss Brent.
“She was on the railway platform at Shoreditch Station,” the girl said from her place beside Nell. “A lady in a fine dress. She came up to me all friendly like while I waited to change trains. She asked where I was going and who my people were.”
Inspector Garrick’s pencil paused over the notepad where he’d been recording Miss Brent’s words. “This was Mrs. Pritchard?”
Like Miles and Gabriel, the policeman remained on his feet.
Miles suspected it was a consequence of the profound inadequacy they were all feeling.
The three of them, poised for action to no avail.
It was the ladies who had faced danger today, not them.
In the aftermath, the men were powerless.
They could do nothing but loom, and pace, and question.
Nothing but try their damnedest not to explode with anger at the risk the women had taken.
Even famously self-controlled Gabriel appeared as though he was a hair’s breadth away from losing his composure. He stood beside his wife as she perched on a chair near Nell, his arms folded and a muscle ticking rhythmically in his cheek.
“That’s her name,” Miss Brent said. “Mrs. Pritchard. Though I didn’t know it ’til later.”
“And you told her who you were?” Garrick asked.
“I told the truth—that I was an orphan traveling to a charity school. I thought that would put her off me seeing as how I wasn’t nobody important, but she was even kinder then.
She brought me a cup of tea and a piece of cake from the refreshment stand.
I drank the tea and…I came over all faint-like.
” Miss Brent’s lip quivered. “She said I needed to lie down, and I was too poorly to say different. The next thing I knew, I was in a room by myself with a locked door and no windows. I thought it must be at the railway station, but it wasn’t. It was in a house.”
“Was this the same day?” Garrick asked. “When you woke up?”
“The next, I reckon, or the day after. My mouth was all dry and my head hurt. I’d been sleeping a long while. And I think she’d been nursing me. I dreamed she came and gave me more tea to drink.”
Miles frowned. Adulterated tea, just as Cowgill had reported.
He met Nell’s eyes, expecting her to exchange a knowing glance with him—to signal that their thoughts were tending in the same direction, as they so often had during their investigations.
But she didn’t. Her gray gaze was oddly unfocused.
A growing sense of disquiet took root in his chest. Something wasn’t right.
“What happened next?” Garrick asked, his pencil poised.
“Mrs. Pritchard came the next morning,” Miss Brent said. “She told me…” The girl’s face flushed red. “She…She said I’d have a gentleman caller in the evening. That I was to behave if I knew what was good for me.”
Mrs. Royce’s eyes kindled with fury. Gabriel set a hand on her shoulder.
“It’s all right,” Nell said to Miss Brent, so softly Miles could scarcely hear her. “You’re safe now.”
Miss Brent took a deep breath. “I knew I had to get away or else something bad was going to happen to me. I tried the door, but it was still locked. I called for help and no one answered. Except…I heard someone else calling for help, too. A man.”
Miles regarded the girl with sharp attention.
“What did you do then?” Garrick asked.
Miss Brent flashed a questioning look at Nell and Mrs. Royce. “I don’t rightly know…”
“Tell the inspector everything,” Mrs. Royce said. “You won’t be in any trouble.”
Miss Brent worried her lip in her teeth for several seconds before making her answer. “I used my hairpins to unlock the door from the inside.”
“Clever girl,” Mrs. Royce said approvingly.
Miss Brent sat up a little taller, bolstered by the praise.
“I crept out of the room into a dark hall. I was in the attic, I think. There was another door there. I heard the man’s voice behind one of them.
‘Help me! Please help me!’ he said. So, I unlocked his door, too.
” A glimmer of annoyance passed over her face.
“I wish I hadn’t,” she added uncharitably.
“He burst out, making such a racket, shouting and stumbling all over as we went down the stairs. Mrs. Pritchard and her man, Silas, came straightaway. Mrs. Pritchard went after the man and Silas tried to grab me. I scratched his face. And then—” She shrugged. “I ran out of the house.”
Miles opened his own notebook to the sketch of Lawrence Cowgill. He crossed the room to Miss Brent to show it to her. “Is this the man you set free from the room at Mrs. Pritchard’s?”
Miss Brent bobbed her head up and down. “That’s him.”
Miles met Garrick’s eyes. “Lawrence Cowgill.”
Garrick gave a somber nod. “Did you see what happened to this man?” he asked Miss Brent.
“Mrs. Pritchard chased him into a room off of the hall,” she replied. “I heard a crash. I reckon he tripped, but I couldn’t stop to help him.”
Garrick’s pencil scratched steadily in his notebook.
“Will that be all, Inspector?” Mrs. Royce inquired.
“One more question.” Garrick addressed Miss Brent. “Do you mind telling me where you’ve been since Wednesday?”
“I got a job working as a scullery maid,” Miss Brent said as if it were the most rational thing in the world.
“A job?” Garrick queried, puzzled. “Where?”
“At Mrs. Davenant’s house in Whitechapel Road,” Miss Brent said. “Mrs. Pritchard stole my railway ticket and pocket money. I had to earn enough to pay the fare to Miss Corvus’s Academy.”
Garrick stilled. “That’s the charity school you were destined for?”
Miles gave the inspector an alert glance. Unless he was very much mistaken, that was recognition in the man’s eyes. “Do you know the place?”
“I have a passing acquaintance with it,” Garrick said.
“That’s interesting,” Mrs. Royce observed. “I don’t recall the Academy having had any business with Scotland Yard.”
“It wasn’t in my professional capacity.” Garrick paused. “I grew up in the neighboring village.”
“Did you, indeed,” Mrs. Royce said. “I do hope you weren’t one of those annoying lads who used to hang about the gates of the school.”
A dull flush crept up Garrick’s neck. He cleared his throat. “It was a long time ago,” he said brusquely. He turned back to Miss Brent. “You remained working as a scullery maid for how long?”
“Until today, sir,” Miss Brent replied. “When Miss Trewlove and Miss Flite came to rescue me.”
Miss Trewlove and Miss Flite?
Miles and Gabriel exchanged a dark glance.
“Mrs. Davenant paid me my wages and we left,” Miss Brent continued. “But Silas set upon us in an alleyway before we could reach the carriage.”
An ominous silence fell over the room. Nell’s gaze dropped to her lap, and Mrs. Royce pointedly didn’t look at her husband. The air vibrated with unspoken tension. Miles didn’t know which of them was more in danger of losing their composure, him or Gabriel.
Gabriel broke first. “Set upon you?” he repeated in a tone of perilous calm. “What might that mean?”
“He tried to take me back to Mrs. Pritchard’s,” Miss Brent explained. “Miss Flite fought him with her parasol. Then she threw her parasol to Miss Trewlove and Miss Trewlove cut him over his eyes. But Silas didn’t stop. He came at us again, and he hit Miss Trewlove ever so hard with his fist—”
Miles surged forward. “What?”
“We brought her here in the carriage,” Miss Brent continued haltingly. “Miss Flite used smelling salts to bring her round.” She looked between Nell and Mrs. Royce. “Did I do wrong? Should I not have said—”
“It’s fine,” Nell assured her. Her words were just as faint as they had been before, with a breathless quality to them, as though she was speaking with enormous effort.
Miles’s gaze raked over her. “He hit you?” She wasn’t only pale, he realized, she appeared a trifle green. A fine mist of perspiration had gathered on her brow. “Where?”
“It’s nothing,” she said in the same weak voice. “I don’t wish to alarm the girl.”
Mrs. Royce stood abruptly. “Given the circumstances, I believe it would be best if my husband and I took Miss Brent back to Sloane Street. She can stay the night. I’ll take her to the Academy myself in the morning.”
“We’ll take her,” Gabriel said.
Mrs. Royce smiled. “A fine idea. If you’re quite finished, Inspector Garrick?”
“I have all I require for now.” Garrick closed his notebook.
“I may have more questions in the days to come. Until then…” He gave a warning look to Miles and Gabriel.
“I want no retaliation against this Silas fellow. I still need to speak with the man. If he’s beaten or God forbid killed in the meanwhile, the case may collapse altogether, and there will be no justice for Miss Brent or Mr. Cowgill. ”
Miles was only half listening to the inspector’s words. He was too busy examining every visible inch of his wife for signs of injury. Kill Silas? It sounded like a fine idea. At the moment, Miles would be quite happy to take the man apart with his bare hands.
“Leave Pritchard and Silas to the law,” Garrick ordered them. “If I can prove they murdered Cowgill, they’ll hang for it. Let that be enough.”
“Then prove it,” Gabriel said. “Before I lose my patience and deal with the man myself.”
“That’s hardly helpful, my love,” his wife said to him. She moved to fetch Miss Brent. “Shall we go, dear, and leave Miss Trewlove to rest?”
“I want to stay with you,” Miss Brent said to Nell, touching her right arm in entreaty.
Nell sucked in a sharp breath.
The girl jerked back her hand. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“It’s all right.” Mrs. Royce drew the girl up from her seat. “Miss Trewlove will be fine. She only needs some peace and quiet.” She gave Miles a pointed look. “And a doctor wouldn’t go amiss.”
Miles’s stomach lurched with apprehension. He waited until everyone had departed the drawing room before sinking down on his haunches in front of Nell. “Did he hit your arm?”
“My shoulder,” she said.
He moved to rise. “I’ll summon the doctor.”
“No!” she objected sharply. “I don’t want a doctor.”
“Want has nothing to do with it. If you’ve broken a bone—”
“I won’t see one, Miles. I hate doctors. Ever since…” She trailed off, closing her eyes. Her breath came in soft, shallow gasps. “I only need a cold compress. And…perhaps a sip of laudanum.”
Miles had never heard such patent absurdity. “Have you lost what’s left of your good sense?” he growled at her. “First to have gone to Whitechapel when I explicitly told you—”
“I know.”
“To fight a man who has already committed murder—”
“I know.”
“And then to let that infernal friend of yours prop you up on the sofa like a broken doll, all the while you’re suffering agonies—”
“Not agonies.” Nell exhaled another labored breath. “Though very near, I confess.”
Miles glared at her. “If you won’t permit a doctor to examine you, I’ll do it.”
Her lashes lifted a fraction. “You?”
“I know enough to tell if anything’s broken. And if it is,” he added sternly, “I’m calling the doctor, with no arguments from you. Agreed?”
A frown creased her brow. “Agreed,” she said at length. “But first…I’d like to lie down in my bed.”
Miles didn’t need to be told twice. Scooping her up carefully in his arms, he carried her from the drawing room.
Mrs. Bright and several of the other servants were hovering outside the door. The housekeeper approached as Miles crossed the hall with Nell. “I knew something was amiss,” she said. “I’d have rung for the doctor myself if I didn’t fear it would be taken as impertinence.”
“Never mind it,” Miles replied curtly. “Do you have any laudanum in the medicine cupboard?”
“Yes, Mr. Quincey,” Mrs. Bright said as he mounted the staircase. “I’ll bring it up directly.”
Miles continued up the stairs to Nell’s bedchamber, cradling her safely in his arms. It might have been romantic if she wasn’t grimacing with his every step.
All the while, his chest was so tight with conflicted emotion he could hardly breathe himself. He wanted to scold her. To rake her so thoroughly over the coals that she’d never do something so bloody stupid again.
And he wanted to hold her closer. To comfort and protect her. To keep her safe and never let her go.
Most of all, he wanted to howl with rage. To go out and find Silas and systematically tear the villain limb from limb. That such a man—that any man—should cause Nell even one moment of pain.
It was too much—all these blasted feelings. How was Miles to endure it? How could anyone?
Steeling himself against the chaos within him, Miles placed Nell down gently in the center of her four-poster bed. He drew back from her, exerting all of his not insubstantial will toward addressing the task at hand. “How attached are you to this dress?”
Nell’s eyes were closed again. She no longer had the look of a sleepy tigress waiting to pounce. She looked young and heart-wrenchingly defenseless. “Not very,” she answered with an effort. Her countenance was waxen. “You bought several more for me today. They’re much prettier.”
His chest constricted tighter. “I’m pleased to hear it.” He examined the set of her sleeve. “I’ll have to cut it off.”
“My arm?” she asked with a disturbing lack of concern.
“Your bodice.”
Nell didn’t reply.
Miles feared she may have slipped into another faint. It was a mercy, really, given what was to come.
He cast about her bedchamber for her ubiquitous sewing bag. He found it wedged in the cushion of a chair by the fireplace. Rifling through its contents, he located a pair of sewing scissors.
And that wasn’t all.
The workbag held at least four unfinished samplers, all of which appeared to contain the same jumbled letters and the same curious black raven with the white-tipped wing he’d observed in the samplers Nell had lately been sewing.
Miles examined them with an arrested frown.
And it struck him, so suddenly he was amazed he hadn’t recognized it before. They weren’t sewing samplers at all, were they?
They were ciphers.