Chapter Twenty-Six #2
Mr. Cooke sighed. “Let me stable my horse. I’ll meet you by the front door.” And taking the reins of his beast, he walked down the street and turned at the corner.
Ernest leaned over from the driver’s seat. “We’re not going home yet, are we?”
“No.” There hadn’t been a pedestrian on the street since we’d arrived here, but leaving the carriage blocking the pavement most likely wasn’t the most polite thing to do. “Can you move the carriage back across the street from the front door? I’ll meet you there.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Shoulders rounded, he picked up the reins and clicked at the horses.
I turned down the street. When I reached the corner, I saw Mr. Cooke handing his horse off to one of the burly doormen, speaking to him in low tones. Farther down the street, Mr. Platt’s hackney sat idle.
Ernest turned the carriage onto the street. He waited for a barouche to pass before pulling over to his original spot. In case Mr. Cooke presented me with the opportunity to make a wager, I began across the street for the reticule sitting in the back of my carriage.
The shout made me pause. The sound of a body hitting the earth had me turning. The hackney driver lay in the middle of the street. He clutched his arm, rocking back and forth in the dirt. I started forward to assist.
A sharp crack spurred the hackney’s horses into action. The dark figure sitting in the driver’s seat brought the whip down several more times.
My indignation over the treatment of the horses had me overlooking the danger. The hackney bore down on me, inexorably.
I stumbled back, my heel catching in the bottom of my skirts. Falling, I threw my arms out to brace my fall.
I never hit the ground. Mr. Cooke’s now familiar hands grabbed me and pulled me off the street. The scents of bay rum and tobacco teased my nose as his arms wrapped around my waist, pulling me from the path of the coach hurtling past, inches from my face.
Cooke shoved me behind him and loped into the street after the hackney.
Ernest jumped down from his seat and ran over. “Are you all right, Lady Mary? He didn’t even try to turn.”
I blew out a shaky breath, blinking. I tried to piece together the last few seconds, to make sense of it.
My mind didn’t seem to want to hold onto their thoughts.
“I’m unharmed.” My voice warbled, and I exhaled another long breath.
I nodded to the man still lying in the street.
“That hackney driver might need help. Will you see to him?”
Ernest nodded and hurried over to the man.
Cooke strode back to me, tucking a small pistol into his pocket. “Shall I call for a doctor?” The lines on his face seemed more pronounced.
“No.” I pressed my hand to my abdomen. My body shook slightly, as though finally realizing how close my escape from injury had been. I straightened. “I’m fine. What on earth just happened?”
Cooke’s thick black eyebrows slammed together. “Someone knocked the hackney driver from his seat, then drove the carriage straight at you. Someone tried to kill you.”
I swallowed, the back of my throat aching. “How fortunate for me he wasn’t skilled at driving large carriages.” The man had waited too long to try to steer the horses to the left, into me. Ernest would have had no problem running someone down.
“This isn’t something to be taken lightly,” Cooke said sharply. “Why are you here, looking in my windows? I must insist you tell me.”
As I could think of no good reason to refuse, I did. When I’d finished, I said, “Mr. Platt did see me watching him through the window. Not five minutes before the attack.”
“Wait here,” Cooke said grimly. He paced to the front door, spoke with the doormen, then disappeared inside. One of the doormen jumped into the saddle of Cooke’s horse and took off in the path of the hackney. The other lumbered over to me and planted himself by my side.
“Good evening.” I looked up, and up, to see his face and gave him a wan smile.
He grunted.
Ernest trotted back to me. “The driver, Tommy, is going to find a night watchman.”
“Will he be all right?” I asked.
“Twisted his elbow pretty badly, but he should heal.” Ernest scratched his head. “I’ve never seen anything like that. He jus’ stole a hackney.”
Had that been the blackguard’s sole intent and I had merely gotten in his way? I somehow doubted it.
The doorman and Cooke’s horse came cantering back, dust flying from the beast’s hooves. The doorman jumped to the ground. “The hackney’s been abandoned two streets up. I didn’t see anyone about it.”
He was talking to the other worker, but I nodded. Not an attempted carriage theft then. I ran my hands up and down my arms, chilled.
Ernest shrugged out of his coat and dropped it on my shoulders. “Milady.”
It smelled of horse, but it was warm, and I was grateful.
The doorman led the horse around the side of the building, where I assumed a stables stood. It was several more minutes until Cooke emerged from the hell. His hat was gone, and his steel gray hair gleamed in the light of the gas lamp as he passed underneath it.
“I spoke with your Mr. Platt,” he said when he reached us. “He claims to have no knowledge of this event.”
“He would.” I pointed toward the hidden stables. “Your man said he found the hackney just two blocks away. Did Platt appear out of breath when you spoke with him? You do have a back door, don’t you?”
“I do, but it isn’t for member use.”
There was a wide valley between what members were supposed to do and what they actually did. “I saw that Mr. Randall in your club, the man you’ve banned from your establishments. He had to get in some way. It only makes sense that someone else could have, too.”
Cooke narrowed his eyes. “Thank you for bringing that to my attention. His admittance will be speedily remedied, but that doesn’t counteract the fact that Platt didn’t use the rear door.”
The certainty in his tone put my back up. I had been following Mr. Platt. He had seen me through the window, discovering my pursuit of him. It only made sense. “How can you be sure?”
A small muscle ticked in Cooke’s jaw. “I not only spoke with Platt, I spoke with several other patrons of the club and my workers. He never left the gaming floor. There are fifty witnesses to attest to that. Someone else tried to kill you.”
For the sake of Platt’s soul, I should have been pleased to learn he wasn’t prone to running people down in coaches.
But I wasn’t. Because if he hadn’t done it, then someone had been following me as I’d been following Platt. I hadn’t seen that person. Hadn’t sensed him.
And he’d been a hairbreadth away from killing me.