To Taste Temptation

Page 42

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Rebecca said as she poured. “It’s only tea.”
“Yes, but many wouldn’t be so gracious”—he shot a sly look at Emeline—“to a working man and all. Why, I’m a simple cobbler at heart.”
“But you own your establishment,” Rebecca objected.
“Oh, indeed, indeed. I have a grand workshop. But it’s all built up by the sweat of my own brow. My father’s business was quite small.”
“Really?” Rebecca asked politely. “I didn’t know that.”
Mr. Thornton shook his head ruefully as if at the memory of his father’s small business. “I took it over right after I came back from the war in the Colonies. Six years ago, that was. Six long years of hard labor and worry to bring my business to what it is today. Why, I do declare, that I’d kill any man who sought to take my business from me.”
Rebecca was looking curiously at Mr. Thornton now. His words, after all, had been far too emphatic for the conversation. Emeline held her breath, watching the man, and as she stared, he did a very strange thing. He cocked his head at her, grinned widely, and winked one eye.
And Emeline felt a thrill of horror shoot through her completely out of proportion to the gesture he’d made.
SAM RODE HOME through the streets of London in a state of angry frustration. Thornton was neither at his home nor his place of business. Some of the information he’d learned today caused him to be anxious that Thornton might try to flee. This together with a kind of animal instinct made urgent the need to find Thornton immediately. Long years of hunting told him that his prey was about to bolt beyond his grasp. If he couldn’t find Thornton today, he’d have to give up the berths he’d bought for Rebecca and himself on The Hopper, sailing early on the morrow.
Then, too, staying longer in London would mean more days in proximity to Emeline. He wasn’t certain he could bear being close to her without going stark, raving mad.
A street urchin ran almost directly under his horse’s nose. The horse sidestepped nervously, and Sam had to pay attention to the reins for a moment. The child was long gone, of course. The boy had probably had thousands of such near-misses in his young life, for the streets of London seemed more like a surging river than a thoroughfare. Hawkers screamed their wares at corners and indeed in the middle of the street. Carriages trundled like elephants, inevitably blocking the way with their bulk. Chairmen bearing sedan chairs wove nimbly among the crowd. And people—men, women, children; infants in arms to old men with canes; high, low, and the multitude in between—all crowded round, each on their own business, each in a hurry to get there. It was a wonder that the very air wasn’t used up, inhaled by thousands of lungs.
Sam felt his own lungs seize at the thought, the illusion of all the air being sucked from the atmosphere infecting his brain. But that was nonsense. He concentrated on his horse and the path immediately in front of them, trying to block out the rest of the humanity surrounding them. He could breathe. There was plenty of air, though it reeked of sewage, rot, and smoke. There wasn’t anything at all wrong with his lungs.
He repeated these thoughts until the town house came into view. Rebecca would still be packing, but perhaps he could entice her to stop long enough for an early luncheon. He swung down from his horse just as one of the lumbering carriages drew up to the house next door—Emeline’s house. The crest on the polished black door bore Vale’s coat of arms. Sam quickened his step into his own house. There was no point in meeting Vale again; all that could be said had already been said there.
Inside, he gave his hat and cloak to the butler and inquired where his sister was.
“Miss Hartley has just left, sir,” the butler replied.
“Indeed?” Sam frowned. Had she gone to do some last-minute shopping? “How long ago?”
“About a half hour.”
“By herself? Did she walk or take the carriage?”
“She left in a carriage, sir, with Lady Emeline and Mr. Thornton.”
The butler turned away to hang up the cloak and hat, completely unaware of the effect of his words. Sam stared, his gut freezing into ice at the thought that his sister and his heart had somehow climbed voluntarily into a carriage with a rapist and murderer. But of course it couldn’t be voluntary. He hadn’t told Rebecca of his suspicions regarding Thornton, but Emeline knew of them. Why would she leave with Thornton knowing—
“What have you done with her?”
Sam whirled at the voice in time to be shoved roughly against the wall. A picture crashed to the floor, and Vale thrust his horribly bruised face at him. “Emmie came here over an hour ago. Where is she?”
Sam quelled the urge to simply punch the other man in the face. He’d already done that, and it hadn’t made matters any better. Besides, Vale cared for Emeline as well. “Emeline and Rebecca have left with Thornton.”
Vale sneered. “What rubbish. Why would Emmie go anywhere with that popinjay? You’ve got her hidden somewhere.” He propelled himself away from Sam and stood, legs spread wide in the hall. “Emmie! I say, Emmie! Come out at once!”
Wonderful. His only ally was a fool. Sam turned away, starting for the front door. He hadn’t time to convince Vale of what was really going on.
But another voice stopped him. “It’s true, my lord.”
He swung around to see Vale staring bemusedly at O’Hare the footman. “Who the hell are you?”
O’Hare gave a bow, sketchy enough to almost be insolent. “Both Miss Hartley and Lady Emeline got into Mr. Thornton’s carriage.” He looked past Vale to catch Sam’s eye. “I didn’t like the way he stood so close to Miss Hartley, sir. I think something was wrong.”
Sam didn’t bother asking why O’Hare hadn’t stopped Thornton. In this country, a servant could be turned off without reference—or worse—for such an act. “Do you have any idea where they were headed?”
“Aye, sir. Princess Wharf in Wapping. I heard Mr. Thornton give the direction to the coachman.”
Vale looked bewildered. “Wapping? Why would Thornton take them to a wharf?”
“Wharves mean ships.”
Vale’s eyebrows shot up. “You think he means to kidnap them?”
“God only knows,” Sam replied. “But we haven’t time to stand about debating the point. Come on, we’ll take your carriage.”
“Hold on, there.” Vale grabbed his arm. “What’s the hurry? How do I know that you’re not hiding Emmie here? Or—”
Sam twisted his arm downward, breaking away from the other man. “Because Thornton is the traitor, and he must somehow know that I’ve found him out.”
Vale’s shaggy eyebrows snapped together. “But—”
“I’ve told you, we haven’t the time,” Sam growled. “O’Hare, do you want to help with this?”
The boy didn’t even hesitate. “Yes, sir!”
“Come on.” Sam was out the door and running down the steps without stopping for Vale’s consent. He’d take the waiting carriage even if the other man insisted on staying behind and debating all the possibilities.
But as he made the carriage, he found Vale beside him. “Princess Wharf, Wapping,” the viscount called to his coachman. “Fast as you can.”
All three men piled into the carriage.
“Now,” Vale said as he settled across from Sam and O’Hare. “Tell me.”
Sam had his eyes on the window. Thornton’s carriage had left long ago, but foolishly he still strained to catch sight of it. “MacDonald took Thornton’s place during or shortly after Spinner’s Falls.”
“You have proof?”
“That a soldier we knew six years ago across the ocean is impersonating a different, dead soldier? No, I don’t. He’s probably killed any proof there was.”
O’Hare shifted beside Sam. The young man hadn’t spoken since they entered the carriage, but his face was worried. The carriage slowed to a roll. Shouts came from the street ahead.
Sam barely kept himself from pounding on the carriage’s roof. He turned to O’Hare. “There were two redheaded soldiers, you see. One was Thornton; one was MacDonald. No one paid attention to them until MacDonald was put in chains and brought back for trial.”
“What had he done, then?” the footman asked.
Sam looked at Vale.
Who pursed his lips and nodded once. “Raped and murdered a woman.”
O’Hare’s face whitened.
“I can understand how MacDonald could’ve switched identities with Thornton in the chaos after Spinner’s Falls, but what of when he came home to England? Surely Thornton had family?”
“A wife.” Sam shook his head. “And she died soon after he came home.”
“Ah.” Vale nodded thoughtfully.
“But what does he want with the ladies now?” O’Hare burst out.
“I don’t know,” Sam muttered. Was Thornton insane? If his guesses were right, the man had murdered two women that they knew of. What would such a man do with the women of a man he considered his enemy?
“Extortion,” Vale said. “Perhaps he hopes to keep you from speaking, Hartley, by holding Rebecca and Emeline hostage.”
Sam closed his eyes at the thought, trying to keep down the voices inside that urged him to move rather than think. “Thornton is smarter than that.”
Vale shrugged. “Even the smartest man can panic.”
A man like Thornton would kill if he panicked.
“How far is it?” Sam asked.
Jasper was staring out the window, too, now. “Wapping? Past the Tower of London.”
Sam sucked in a breath. They were still on the fashionable west side of London. The Tower was a mile or more away, and the carriage wasn’t moving fast.
“I just remembered something,” Jasper muttered.
Sam looked at him.
The other man’s face had drained of color. “When we saw Thornton in your garden, after we went into your house for tea, he boasted to me about a large shipment he was preparing for the British army.”
“Where was it bound?”
Jasper swallowed, then replied, “India.”
Sam felt his heart stop in his chest. If Thornton got Emeline and Rebecca on a ship bound for India...
The carriage slowed and then came to a complete stop. Sam looked out the window. A brewer’s cart was stopped in the middle of the road, one of its great wheels broken from the axle. He didn’t even wait for the inevitable shouting to begin. He opened the carriage door.
“Where are you going?” Vale cried.
“I’m faster on foot,” Sam replied. “You continue in the carriage. Perhaps you’ll beat me there.”
And he swung down and began running.
Chapter Nineteen
At the sight of Iron Heart’s white-hot heart, Princess Solace gave a cry of despair. His agony was too terrible for her to bear. She ran forward and with her own hands threw a bucket of water upon him, intending to ease his pain. But, alas, although the flames were doused, it is well known what happens when metal suddenly cools.
Iron Heart’s heart cracked with a loud SNAP....
—from Iron Heart
The gun was pressed firmly into Rebecca’s rib cage and didn’t move a whit even when the carriage bumped and swung around corners. Emeline bit her lip. To either side of her, two great brutes, Mr. Thornton’s creatures, sat, effectively boxing her in. She and Rebecca had never even seen the men until they were inside the carriage. Not that it would’ve mattered. Mr. Thornton had shoved his nasty gun into Rebecca and ordered them both outside and into his carriage, and Emeline hadn’t liked to call his bluff at the time. The peril of having Rebecca die before her eyes had seemed all too imminent.