Regency: Rakes & Reputations: A Rake by Midnight / The Rake's Final Conquest. Gail Ranstrom

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СКАЧАТЬ Home Office has failed twice. If not me, if not you, then who?”

      He shook his head as if to deny her words. “I am merely trying to stay alive until he has been caught. I’d advise you to do the same.”

      She squeezed his arm to make her point. “I need your help, Mr. Metcalfe. Tell me what you know that makes you fear for your life. Tell me anything you know that could bring him down. Tell me what lock your little key fits and what I will find there.”

      “I’ve already said too much.”

      The dance ended and Mr. Metcalfe released her, glancing over his shoulder with a harried look. Before she could form a protest, he was gone, disappearing into the crowd almost instantly.

      At least she finally had an answer to one of her questions. Now she knew why she couldn’t remember the events of that night. But there was still so much more she needed to know. If she could not remember herself, surely there was someone, somewhere, who could fill in those lost hours.

      Her head whirled with the implications of Mr. Metcalfe’s warnings. She needed a moment to think, to gather her composure and plan what she should do next. As the next dance began, she crossed the dance floor to the wide terrace doors and slipped through, ignoring the couples gathered there and others strolling along the paths. She needed to find just a single moment in a quiet place.

      She stopped at an ivy-covered arbor and gripped the latticework until her knuckles were white. Gradually she became aware that she’d punctured her thumb on a hidden thorn. She shook her hand. “Ouch!”

      Mr. Metcalfe appeared out of the shadows and came to her side. Had he decided to tell her about the key?

      He took her hand and lifted it to his mouth. He licked the little droplet of blood. Shocked, she pulled her hand away. “Sir!”

      He produced a handkerchief from the folds of his black robe and she accepted it reluctantly.

      “Delicious,” he said.

      A chill spiraled up her spine. That was not Mr. Metcalfe’s voice! Instinctively, she spun around to make a dash for the terrace doors, but the leper’s hand clamped over her mouth and she was yanked back against a hard chest.

      “How nice to see you again, my dear. You look just like a pretty little canary. I wonder if your neck will be as easy to break.”

      Henley! Dear God!

      He began dragging her backward. “But you and I are like the phoenix, m’dear. We have both risen from the ashes, eh? Though I shall rise and soar whilst you shall burn again. Poor little bird.”

      A sound, half moan, half muted scream, rose from her throat and he clamped his hand tighter, mashing her lips against her teeth and closing her nostrils.

      Henley’s breath was hot and foul against her cheek. “Ah, and here comes your erstwhile savior. How fortunate for me. Now, if I only had a pistol. My, my. Yes, a knife will have to do again.”

      James was looking for her, turning in every direction, but he could not see them in the shadows of the arbor. Henley could slash him when he walked past! “Eugenia? Miss O’Rourke?”

      Henley chortled. “So proper? Are you not his whore yet?” he asked in a raspy voice.

      She brought her heel down sharply on his instep and pulled away at the same time. “Jamie!” she screamed.

      He turned toward her voice and came running at full speed. Henley uttered a foul curse and ran in the opposite direction.

      Jamie reached her and gripped both her arms as he looked into her eyes. “Are you all right?”

      She forced her tears back as she nodded and pointed in the opposite direction, her throat raw. “Henley!”

      “Run to the house. Do not stop until you are there. Find Charlie and tell him what’s happened.” He took off in pursuit and she thought she heard him utter an equally foul curse.

       Chapter Nine

      The gardens were empty near the back mews. No sign of Henley, damn it all! The man could not have doubled back or Jamie would have seen him. He arrived at a scene of confusion at the stables.

      “… just took his lordship’s stallion and rode off,” one groom was saying to another.

      Jamie could still hear the hoofbeats in the distance. “Who?” he shouted.

      The stable hands turned to him. “A leper, sir. Dressed like a leper. I was just saddling Lord Grenleigh’s stallion when the man ran up, knocked me on my arse, took the reins and rode away. What’ll I tell his lordship, sir?”

      Jamie couldn’t think of that now. Only that Henley had gotten away again and by the time his coach was made ready Henley would be enjoying a pint in whatever hole he hid in. “Have my driver ready my carriage and bring it around front. I’ll give Grenleigh the news.”

      “Thank ye, sir.” The stable master tipped his cap with a look of profound relief.

      Damn Henley, that misbegotten son of Satan! Jamie strode back through the gardens, his head down, hoping to find some clue, some hint of Henley’s presence or an indication of where he’d been. In the shadows of the arbor, the toe of his shoe skimmed something soft and pliable. He looked down, startled to see something that looked suspiciously like a hand.

      He knelt and parted the shrubbery. A man’s body, covered partially by the foliage, had been hidden beneath the branches. Dreading what he might find, he rolled the body over. Bloody hell…Stanley Metcalfe. The very man Jamie had been searching for this past week. Henley had gotten to him first.

      Metcalfe’s pale blue eyes were still open and his mouth gaped in a silent scream. A quick inspection of the still-warm body revealed that the crimson-stained vest had a clean cut through to the flesh. Metcalfe’s death had not been easy. Had Eugenia seen the body?

      “Holy Mother of God,” Charlie whispered over Jamie’s shoulder. “What happened?”

      Icy cold pierced Jamie’s heart. “Where is Eugenia?”

      “Inside. I calmed her, told her to say nothing, and took her to the Thayers with instructions not to leave the ballroom. Then I came to find you.”

      “She told you Henley—”

      Charlie nodded and knelt beside him. “Shall I assume he melted into the night as is his wont?”

      He gave his brother a rueful smile. “Not quite. He stole Grenleigh’s prize stallion.”

      “Not very sporting of him, was it?”

      He ignored the attempt at levity. “He had her, Charlie. God only knows what would have happened….” He looked down at Metcalfe’s body again, knowing that Henley had planned something of the same sort for her.

      “But he doesn’t have her now,” Charlie said in a deadly calm voice. “And we shall see to it that he never has that chance again. Meantime, we will have to inform Wycliffe and our erstwhile host. ‘Twould seem the party СКАЧАТЬ