The Complete Regency Bestsellers And One Winters Collection. Rebecca WintersЧитать онлайн книгу.
carefully and then shook his head. ‘Do you? It’s a list for things from a chemist by the looks of it.’
‘If I did, this case would already be half-solved. Will you do something for me, Hawk? Can you ask around to see if anyone saw anything? I do not want to seem interested because...’
‘Because implication is only one step away from imprisonment and Cassandra Northrup’s presence at Whitechapel will make everything that much harder again. Society does not seem exactly enamoured by her pursuit of the nefarious and a woman like that will only bring the old Earl’s wrath down upon your head with even more than the usual vigour.’
‘Remember that puppy we had at school, Hawk, the one we hid for a term in the woodcutter’s shed, the one you found off the roadside on the way to Eton?’
‘Springer. My God, he was the best dog I ever owned.’
‘Sixteen weeks of sneaking out twice a day with the food we had saved from the dining hall and then another jaunt for exercise. One hundred and twelve days before you could bundle him up and take him back to Atherton.’
‘An unfortunate start to life, but he had the heart of a warrior till the day he died. But what is your point, Nat?’
‘Cassandra Northrup is a fighter just like that dog and for some damned reason I feel compelled to help her.’
‘You said she had betrayed you in France.’
‘So did Springer. He bit you, remember, that time at the cliff....’
‘Whilst trying to save me from falling.’
Nat drew his hand through his hair and wiped back the length of his fringe. ‘What if Cassandra Northrup once did the same for me, Hawk? What if what she said she did and what she really did were two different things?’
‘You are saying she might have betrayed you to save you?’
‘I am.’
* * *
Cassandra had dressed carefully in a dark jacket and loose trousers, the cap she wore covering her face and her hair knotted in a bun at the back of her nape.
A caricature of Nathaniel Lindsay had appeared in the evening edition of a popular London broadsheet, one hand clinging on to the family crest and the other around the shapely ankle of a woman of the night. A poxed and toothless woman, her cheeks sunken with the mercury cure and rats scurrying from beneath the hem of her ragged skirt.
Lord Lindsay could not have been pleased; she knew this without listening to any gossip. He had also remained quiet about her involvement in this whole chaotic and sordid affair which, given the history between them, was a lot more than she might have expected.
Why he had been there in the first place she had no notion of, but he had been alone in the room waiting and completely dressed and when he had first pressed her against the door she had felt the outline of both knife and pistol.
Another thought also came. She had imagined she had been followed when she came to the boarding house in the backstreets of Whitechapel. Could it have been Lindsay watching?
The web of lies that bound them to each another was closing in, sticky with deceit, and yet here she was again, moving through his garden for a further encounter in his library. If she had any sense at all, she should be turning for home and ignoring his threats or packing her things and moving north for a while until the shock of seeing him again eased down into reason.
But she could not. Every fibre of her being could not.
He was exactly where he had been last time as she climbed through the window, his long legs out in front of the wing chair by the fire.
The only difference this time was that he had catered for her arrival, two glasses filled beside him.
‘I have had a trying day,’ he said as he handed one to her, ‘and as you are the reason for it I hope you will join me in a drink.’
‘A celebration of your notoriety?’ Even as she gave the reply she wished she had not, but he only smiled.
‘Yesterday the débutantes and their mothers were pursuing me with all the wiles in the world. Today they are...fleeing.’
‘Sexual deviance may appear rather daunting to any woman, no matter the size of the purse an ancient family brings.’
At that he did laugh.
‘How did you know the man who was murdered?’
‘I didn’t.’
‘Then why were you there?’
‘I had word of young girls being brought in from the country.’
‘And you were attempting to locate them?’ Lifting his glass, he held it up and waited for her to take a sip. Cassandra hated strong drink, but, not wishing to annoy him further, she took a mouthful and swallowed. The burning bitterness reminded her of Nay and of all that she longed to forget.
‘The information I received gave a location, a time and a date, but when I got there the man was already dead.’
‘With a knife in the back of his neck?’
‘Yes.’ She did not blink.
‘What else did you see?’
‘A briefcase that was empty of papers.’
‘Papers like this one I found in the corridor outside the murdered man’s room.’
He brought out a sheet of tightly written words. He knew she recognised it by her sudden stillness. ‘Your father pens articles for a science journal. The editor is a friend of mine and I spent a few hours this afternoon with him. When, by chance, he showed me Lord Cowper’s latest offering the two hands appeared identical.’
‘That is what the person who put this there wanted you to think, wanted the constabulary to think. My father is the one person who can stop them.’
‘How?’
‘He funds the Daughters of the Poor, and we are making good progress in catching those who trade the lives of young girls for work in the factories and the brothels.’
‘We, meaning you. You in your boy’s clothes in the dead of night risking life, limb and reputation.’
‘Gone.’
‘Pardon?’
‘My reputation is gone. You of all people should know that.’
‘The redemption of a sinner then, brazen and unmindful. I expected more of you.’
‘Oh, I have ceased trying to live up to any expectations save that of my own, my lord. Now prudence rules over heroics, which in itself is a timely lesson for all who might rally against injustice.’
‘Society holds you up as a saint?’
‘Hardly that.’
‘But not as a whore?’
The quick punch of hurt and then nothing. By the time she had come out from that hovel of a building in Perpignan Nathanael Colbert had long been gone and she had wiped all trace of sacrifice from her conscience since.
Just a small space of hours, blurred by pain.
She was glad he had not insisted on the removal of her chemise last night for even in that darkened room he would have seen and known. Her shame. She glanced away, knowing the black anger of it would be showing in her eyes and she did not wish for him to see.
The mark on his jaw shone opaque against the firelight, lost slightly in the growth of stubble. If he grew a beard, it would be gone entirely. She was glad he had not. Had he wanted to he could have erased all memory of her for ever. As it was he must look every day into his reflection and be reminded.
The futility of everything blended with the brandy, a melancholy covering all she had hoped for once. He was as