Loving Rose: The Redemption of Malcolm Sinclair (Casebook of Barnaby Adair) (29 page)

As ever, he went with her, ready and willing to follow wherever in their landscape of passion and desire she led.

Drawing back from the heated melding of their mouths, feeling desire rising in a warm wave beneath her skin, with passion already a low thunder in her veins, she stepped away and disrobed . . . for him.

He held still and, his chest rising and falling dramatically, watched her unveil herself, the gold in his eyes glinting hot as the flames that rose beneath her skin.

Naked, bathed in the wanton glow of her desire combined with his, sensing the power that was hers flowing through her, she returned to him, placed her hands on his chest, stretched up—and touched her scorching lips to his.

The kiss scalded; their tongues tangled and flames ignited, desire erupting, hotter and sharper—more compelling.

She broke from the engagement, drawing back, stepping back.

He made an inarticulate sound and reached for her, but she caught his wrists, trapped his gaze. “No—let me.”

He hesitated; eyes locked with hers, he teetered . . . but then he hauled in a huge breath, and nodded.

Once. As if once was all he could manage.

She didn’t ask for more, but set herself to strip him. Slowly, lingeringly.

Drinking him in.

She had no guarantee that this wouldn’t be the last time, the last chance Fate allowed her to set her hands to his skin, to pay homage to the undeniable strength of the heavy muscles cording his torso. His injuries had distorted what must once have been male perfection; he was no longer symmetrically shaped, but in her eyes, that only added to his beauty.

He was real. No polished god, no false icon.

He was true. Steady and strong, and always as he appeared.

And that, she worshipped. All that he now was.

Just as he had committed, unasked and willingly, to give his all—his freedom, his future, his life if need be—to saving William and freeing her, too, so she, now, gave herself to him.

Without reservation, without restraint.

Without guarantees.

Without thought for tomorrow.

She put all her anxieties aside and devoted herself to this, to now, to him.

To them.

As she had accepted, so, too, did he—guided, it seemed, more by instinct, by fate, than by any logic or deliberate thought.

Thomas couldn’t think, too overwhelmed by the feelings. Not by their passions, not by their desires, potent though both were.

It was that deeper power—the one he still refused to name, still refused to acknowledge because he couldn’t bring himself to believe he would be allowed to keep it—that surged through him and overwhelmed his mind, leaving him no option than to follow her lead, to let her take his hand and lead him to the bed.

They sank into each other’s arms; eyes wide, gazes locked, they caressed, and knew again.

Learned again all the joys they’d previously found, indulged again. With passion and abandon, with growing hunger and escalating need, they gave and took, and shared.

They came together in a rush of wild delight, on a sweeping flight of passion so intense he could barely breathe.

He bent his head and their lips locked; his body surged and plundered, and hers flowered in welcome and she clung.

They rode their wild ride into the heart of passion’s storm, up and over the crest into ecstasy.

Into the sun of that ineluctable glory, to where their senses fragmented and their souls fractured, then melded into one.

To where bliss waited to cradle and soothe them, to fill the achingly empty void.

To where togetherness and closeness welled and overflowed, and eradicated the loneliness of two originally separate hearts.

L
ater, long after they’d eased apart, turned down the lamp, and drawn the covers over their cooling bodies, Rose lay in Thomas’s arms and listened to the slow cadence of his sleeping heart.

For long moments, she simply wallowed.

Of their own volition, as if instinctively seeking to imprint every last minute detail of him on her senses, her hands gently drifted over his damaged side, her fingertips tracing his scars, the knots, whorls, and ridges she’d come to know so well.

Those scars marked him more than he realized; they were the physical signs that he had changed so very much from the man he once had been. They were the markers of his journey; they stood in silent testimony to how far he’d traveled from the identity that now threatened to reach out and reclaim him, and make him pay for those past sins.

And what of her?

Was she to pay, too?

If she lost him, she would. And if it came to that, she would.

If Fate forced her to let him go, she would.

Not for Fate, but for him.

Because she knew what he thought, knew how he saw himself; she knew she had to let him walk into the darkness of whatever lay ahead—so he could learn what lay beyond.

And so she would.

But until she knew that there was no hope, no possibility, not even a tiny kernel, until the last bell tolled, she would fight and hold fast. To the chance, to the promise.

To their love.

Chapter

13

T
hey set their plan in motion the next morning. Regardless of to whom the man who had recognized Rose and William might report, the risk that Percival had already been notified that William was in London, most likely in Mayfair, left them no real choice—no further time to investigate.

As William’s principal guardian, if Percival got William into his hands, getting the boy free again . . . none of them felt confident that could even be done. Rose’s testimony alone could be too easily dismissed as the hysterical imaginings of a female mind weakened by understandable grief.

Stokes reached Hertford Street before the bells tolled eight, and he joined his man on the South Audley Street corner. Dressed in an old coat the better to blend with his men, Stokes nodded to O’Donnell. “Any movement?”

“No, sir. Not yet.” O’Donnell, again dressed in the garb of a street-sweeper, leaned on his broom. “But Morgan slipped close before first light and pushed your note under the front door, just as you ordered. The maids would’ve found it by now.”

Stokes nodded. Their scheme to elicit a sufficiently incriminating reaction from Percival was simplicity itself. The note in question, courtesy of Phelps, Barnaby’s coachman, written in an unpolished, masculine hand, read:

We heard as you want the boy, William Percival, to disappear. If such is the case, bring one thousand pounds to the Salisbury Stairs at eleven o’clock today and speak to the man in the plaid cap and mayhap we’ll be able to help you out.

With advice from Barnaby and Montague, Thomas had crafted the wording. When, on reading the script, Stokes had looked doubtful, Thomas had pointed out that if Richard Percival was an honest man, on receiving such a note, his first stop would be Scotland Yard. If, instead, he elected to go to the Salisbury Stairs and paid the cash, what would that say of his motives?

Stokes had had to agree. If Percival left his house and went to the Salisbury Stairs, a set of water steps on the banks of the Thames, and paid the man in the plaid cap one thousand pounds . . . together with Rose’s testimony, that would be enough to at least get Percival into police custody. And then they would have time to wring more from him, his staff, Curtis, and whoever else Percival had been consorting with.

Thomas. Stokes realized he’d thought of the man by his first name, not the more distant
Glendower.
Stokes wasn’t sure when the change had occurred, when he’d started acknowledging the man more personally, but after last night, when Stokes had seen Thomas carrying young Pippin to the carriage, seen the nature of his smile as he’d encouraged Homer—William—to follow with Rose, Stokes couldn’t doubt the reality of the man’s feelings toward his charges, charges he hadn’t had to assume yet had, apparently without hesitation.

The feelings that had shone so clearly in Thomas’s face were feelings with which Stokes was intimately familiar. The fact that Griselda, who was no easy mark, and who, Stokes had been aware, had observed Thomas with an initially highly critical eye, had been moved to wholeheartedly approve of the man—not his standing, his actions, but the man himself—had further shifted and solidified Stokes’s view.

Quite how this would end Stokes didn’t know, but he no longer bore Thomas any ill will. The man had paid, comprehensively and on many levels, for his past misdeeds. If Fate consented to allow him a second chance, Stokes, for one, wouldn’t stand in his way.

Beside Stokes, O’Donnell shifted. “Daresay we won’t see any action until himself consents to get out of bed.”

Stokes considered, then grimaced. “We wrote ‘Urgent’ on the note, so with any luck his staff will see the sense in putting it on his breakfast tray and setting that before him soon.” He pulled out his watch and consulted it. It was already fifteen minutes past eight o’clock. “He’ll have to move by ten-thirty at the latest if he’s to reach the Salisbury Stairs in time.”

Eyes flicking down the street, O’Donnell straightened. “Speaking of the devil, that’s Morgan’s signal that Percival’s curtains have been opened.”

“Excellent.” Tucking his watch back into his pocket, Stokes looked down the street. He couldn’t immediately spot the younger man. “Where is Morgan?”

“Area steps opposite and two doors further down. We realized the house there’s closed up, and so the area down the steps leading to the servant’s door is the perfect spot to keep an eye on Percival’s house. The staff of the surrounding houses just think as we’re beggars looking for a place to kip.”

“I think,” Stokes said, “that I’ll go and join Morgan. Where’s Philpott?”

O’Donnell tipped his head back along South Audley Street. “He’s keeping watch in the lane behind the houses in case Percival heads out that way.”

“Good. And the others?” Stokes had sent orders to the Yard for two more men, one another constable and the other a runner, to join them.

“Philpott dropped in at headquarters earlier, and he said the desk said as the pair you’d asked for would report to me here by eight-thirty.”

Stokes nodded. “Keep them with you for the moment. Whenever Percival leaves, however he leaves, we’ll follow, all of us, but we’ll need to keep well back.”

“Aye, sir.”

Leaving O’Donnell to mind his corner, Stokes crossed to the opposite side of Hertford Street and ambled along, apparently idly, but, in reality, scanning the houses opposite. Eventually reaching Morgan’s refuge, reasonably sure no one was watching, Stokes smoothly stepped onto the area steps and descended to where Morgan was perched, the top of his head barely clearing the pavement as he kept his gaze trained on Percival’s house.

“Sir.” Morgan flashed Stokes an expectant grin. “Looks like we might see some action soon.”

“Here’s hoping.” Stokes hunkered down, remembering why surveillance was one of his least favorite aspects of his job.

Morgan’s position gave them a clear view of Percival’s bedroom window. Within a short space of time, it was apparent that there was considerable movement inside the room, with people rapidly moving back and forth, interfering with the play of light on the pane.

“Well, well,” Stokes muttered. “Looks like our note has, indeed, spurred him to action.” He paused, then added, “Now we wait to see which way he heads.” Down the path of an innocent man to the Yard, or along the road of a murderer toward the Thames.

Percival surprised him by doing neither. When, just after nine o’clock, the front door opened and Percival, in breeches and boots, jacket, and a loosely tied scarf in place of a cravat, his dark hair looking as if he’d run his hands through it, grim-faced and sober, strode down the steps, he turned right, his deliberate strides carrying him rapidly along the pavement to the intersection with South Audley Street.

Morgan frowned. “Bit early to be heading to the river, isn’t it, sir?”

“Indeed,” Stokes muttered. But it wasn’t too early to head for Scotland Yard.

Even as the thought formed in Stokes’s mind, Percival reached South Audley Street. Passing between the buildings and the group of three men gathered at the corner—O’Donnell and the two recent arrivals from the Yard—Percival turned north.

Away from Scotland Yard. Also away from the river.

“Where the devil is he going?” Stokes glanced at Morgan. “Come on.”

They reached the corner in time to see Percival, further along the pavement, hail a hackney. They weren’t close enough to hear what directions he gave the jarvey, but his wave indicated somewhere north and east.

Stokes immediately hailed a passing cab. “Morgan and Davies, with me.” Davies was the young runner, already eager and straining at some metaphorical bit to race off with a message. “O’Donnell—get Philpott, find another cab, and follow as fast as you can.”

Morgan had already swung up to share the jarvey’s bench, was already directing the driver’s notice to the cab carrying Percival north. Stokes hopped into the carriage; immediately Davies scrambled in, slamming the door behind him, the hackney started rolling.

Trusting Morgan to keep Percival in sight, to keep their hackney unobtrusively following, Stokes sat back and watched the streets slip by, plotting their route in his head.

When the hackney turned right into Oxford Street and continued at a steady clip east, Davies, leaning forward to peer at the façades sliding past, asked, “Where do you think he’s going, sir?”

Stokes was wondering that himself. “It could be that he has an accomplice. We hadn’t considered that, but it’s certainly a possibility.”

When, fifteen minutes later, the carriage had continued through St. Giles Circus and onto High Holborn, then had rattled past Chancery Lane and Gray’s Inn Road, Stokes suddenly realized, “He’s going to Curtis’s office.” Leaning forward, he peered through the window, looking ahead. “It’s just ahead, this side of Holborn Circus.”

Sure enough, the hackney slowed, then pulled into the curb. Stokes and Davies got out; after paying the jarvey, Morgan joined them on the pavement.

Facing Stokes, Morgan tipped his head back and to his right. “Saw him go into that building along there.”

“That’s Curtis’s office.” Stokes scanned the area, picking out several likely spots from where his men could watch the building. To Morgan he said, “Take Davies and scout around the back—see if there’s a way out on that side. I’ll wait here for the others, then we’ll deploy to cover all entrances. Report back to me here.”

Morgan nodded, jerked his head, summoning Davies to follow, then melted into the stream of passersby.

After a moment, Stokes drew out his watch. It was a little after half past nine. Tucking the watch away, he glanced along the street to where Curtis’s office lay; if Percival had arrived in search of support for his meeting at the river, then it would be a little while yet before he moved again. Stokes and his men would have time to get into decent positions.

Another hackney pulled up, disgorging the rest of his small force; they hadn’t been that far back, had been able to follow purely by sight, but the traffic had slowed them.

Morgan and Davies reappeared. Morgan shook his head. “No way out that way, sir. The building backs onto another, and that one’s a warehouse and we checked. There’s no way through.”

If it hadn’t been Morgan, Stokes would have been skeptical—he found it hard to believe Curtis wouldn’t have another way out—but it was Percival they were after, and the man had no reason to imagine he was under surveillance. “Right, then.” Stokes looked down the street. “We’ll cover the front only, but we need to make sure we raise no hackles. Curtis is no fool, and his men aren’t, either, so we need to ensure they get not even a whiff of us. Understood?”

There were nods all around. Stokes had handpicked this crew from the most experienced and talented men the Yard had on roster for surveillance work; Davies was new and too eager to be left alone, but all the rest Stokes knew he could rely on.

He let them pick their own places of concealment, then watched as they drifted and ambled into position.

Stepping back under the overhang of a tobacconist shop’s canopy, Stokes leaned his shoulders against the rough brickwork and slouched as if waiting for a friend. Davies all but quivered alongside.

After several minutes of silence, Davies whispered, “The boy who just left Curtis’s office—he’s a runner.”

Even as Stokes glanced briefly along the street, another young lad came barreling out of Curtis’s door and raced toward them; he passed Stokes and Davies, flying along at a good clip. “So,” Stokes murmured, “Percival arrives, and ten minutes later, Curtis sends messengers out.”

The boy’s headlong dash past them seemed to have infected Davies with a similar urge. He shifted back and forth on his feet. After a moment more, he offered, “I could duck down and tell those at the river our mark’s up here—I’d be back before anything happened.”

“No.” Stokes softened the prohibition with, “We don’t know what might happen. We need to know Percival is definitely on his way to the river,
and
whether he has anyone with him, before you hare down.”

He also planned to order Davies, once he’d warned those at the Salisbury Stairs, to hie on to the Yard and let those there know that their scheme had borne fruit, so they could prepare . . . Stokes ducked his head as a large, thickset man, along with his slightly smaller crony, walked briskly past.

Glancing sideways, without lifting his head Stokes watched as the pair reached the entrance to Curtis’s office and disappeared inside.

Davies, who, to give the lad due credit, had had the sense to look vacant, murmured, “Were they Curtis’s men—inquiry agents?”

Stokes nodded. Like Thomas, he could recognize the type on sight. Something about their elevated alertness instantly triggered his inner alarms.

Not that inquiry agents who worked for men like Curtis were dangerous . . . or, at least, not generally. Not in Stokes’s previous experience.

As he watched more agents, doubtless summoned by the boys who’d been sent out, walk through Curtis’s door, Stokes wondered if, today, previous experience would hold true. All told, six men had responded to Curtis’s summonses.

Stokes pulled out his watch; it was twenty minutes past ten o’clock. He glanced at Curtis’s offices; if Percival wanted to make the rendezvous at the Salisbury Stairs at eleven o’clock, he would have to move soon.