Chapter 34

CHAPTER 34

I n three hours this interminable wait would be over, Lucien told himself as he paced the townhouse. Guests would arrive, the party commence, and at least some of the tension coiling in his belly would ease. Simon and McLeod seemed confident everything was under control, he reassured himself, and they had spent years in the military, on guard against ambush.

But, much as Lucien trusted their judgement, he had a wife and child to consider for the first time, love far too precious to lose.

He scowled as he searched the rooms for anything out of the ordinary—which was everything at the moment, he admitted with grim humor. Oh, he'd hosted gentleman's dinners at Raven's Court through the years, serving up simple fare, his best port and strategies for political schemes. But now, the townhouse was awash in swishing skirts, the fragrance of perfume and the hum of feminine anticipation.

Raven's Court had never felt alive in quite this way, not even when his mother had been hostess to events in the past. But then, she had dreaded them, while Grace possessed a unique gift for drawing people out, making them part of the good she hoped to do.

Cassandra had applied her artistic skills to the canvas backgrounds for the tableaux Grace had planned, painting star-spangled skies and vignettes from the Dickens novel A Christmas Carol. Some, the exteriors, like Scrooge's famed counting house, others, interiors like Fezziwig's warehouse, and Bob Cratchit's home, each to be illuminated with candles and oil lamps that glowed.

Penelope had entertained little Kit while she organized serving pieces Lucien had forgot he'd even possessed and Jane had filled gauze bags with treats for the children who would be caroling among the guests. Gingernuts and boiled sweets, pencils and India rubber balls and colorful tin horns. When Kit escaped his mother's eye and began attempting to toot one, Lucien had muttered something about the fresh hell the women were unleashing. But he couldn't help imagining his own child delighting in such a toy, and Grace's laughter as he marched about.

Now, Simon's son was off with his nanny in the nursery that had stood empty for so many years. Simon and McLeod were doing one final check with their informants, and Lucien was trying to stay the devil out of the way as the women completed their toilettes.

He donned his own garb then retreated to his study, leaving Penelope, Jane and Grace hastening back and forth between rooms, exclaiming over jewelry and fans and making last-minute adjustments to gowns and hair.

Only Cassandra had not joined in the preparations with the same enthusiasm, seeming as edgy as Lucien as the hour for the party approached. They had not spoken alone since the revelation she'd intended to sabotage his marriage, but when he peered into the ballroom, he was surprised to find her there. She was garbed in a severe gown of black satin with red ribbon trim, yet she looked strangely younger, more uncertain. Once, he might have quietly slipped away, but he stepped closer. "You've done lovely work on these tableaux," he said, gesturing to the painted toy spaniel beneath a Christmas tree. "This looks like our old dog Flash. He even has one of Jane's dolls in his mouth. He led us on many a merry chase."

"It is so strange, is it not?" Cassandra mused, running her fingers over a candlestick decorated with the stars their mother had loved. "It's as if Raven's Court is waking up after some enchantment. I see the same silver, the same ballroom floor and paintings, and yet, it feels so different from the way it was when we were children."

"Yes."

"I had buried so much. Seeing mother's things brings it flooding back."

He saw her shudder and wondered what she was reliving. They each had their own nightmares.

"The last time I was here is when Father introduced me to Thornsby, insisting I waltz with him," Cassandra said.

Thornsby, the evil man their father had betrothed Cassandra to against her will. Mother had been attempting to spirit Cassandra to safety the night Lucien had sounded the alarm. He hadn't known of his father's machinations…and yet, it turned Lucien's stomach to remember that his actions had enabled their father to deliver Cass into the hands of the lecherous bastard who had preyed upon a girl not even out of the schoolroom. Thank God, their mother had managed to obtain Cassandra's release, even from the asylum the earl had imprisoned her in.

He tried to think of the words to say to his sister, but before he could speak, Cass's voice came, soft, uncertain.

"Have you ever wondered if our family is cursed?" She looked up at him, her gaze searching his face.

Lucien shook his head. "I don't believe in curses."

"I do. Do you remember Paola, my maid?"

Lucien pictured the grim Italian woman with the eyepatch who had looked at him as if he were the devil. "It would be hard to forget her, especially since she was the one who taught you to wield a sword. Strange, I hadn't marked the fact that she did not accompany you here."

Cassandra picked at her thumbnail, and shrugged. "She was called away. When we were in Italy, she introduced me to a Romany seer, an old woman who said…sins demand payment in blood. She knew a Sin Eater, said he could wash the curse away, but I refused. I wanted you and Father to pay for what you had done more than I wanted to be free of some evil spell…even if that could free Jane and Simon and Mama. Even if it could free me."

Lucien had felt the same kind of poison, eating away at him…before Grace.

"I always accused you of being like Father," Cass said. "But perhaps I am the one?—"

She stopped at the sound of someone else entering the room, a footman looking irritated, red splotches on his face.

"Pardon the interruption, my lord, but there is a person at the front door who insists on seeing you."

Lucien glanced at the ormolu clock on a table. Possibly some news from one of the guards posted on the corners outside?

"He refuses to come inside," the footman huffed in high dudgeon. "I explained that lords do not address strangers on their doorstep."

The back of Lucien's neck prickled. "I'll see him. Cassandra, perhaps we can continue our conversation later."

"Heaven forbid." She waved her hand, shuttering that hint of vulnerability away. "Go on, before I say something even more foolish."

Troubled, Lucien made his way down to the front entry, the arches and nooks bedecked with holly and silver ribbon.

A hard-eyed man stood outside the townhouse door, his coat worn but clean, his soft cap pulled over mouse-brown hair badly in need of a trim. There was something vaguely familiar about him, though Lucien couldn't place him.

"I am Lord Everdene," Lucien said.

"I knows it." The man's lip curled in disdain. "I saw you the day you came pryin' around the boarding house looking for O'Malley. Stopped us right in the middle o' readin' that Dickens fellow an' O'Malley's not been around since."

"What do you want with me?"

"You? Nothin'. Wouldn't pour slops over yer head if yer hair was on fire, but I would fight my way through a horde o' heathens for O'Malley. He sent for me and told me to put this in yer hand without fail. Took long enough t' find yer." He thrust out a crumpled piece of paper, covered all over with print. A page torn from Oliver Twist. In the margins, someone had penciled the words:

Found Darragh. Come to Nolans now or people will die. O'Malley.

Lucien looked up sharply, remembering O'Malley's warnings about rebellion, then the note that had come with Grace's tin soldier.

Spark to flame.

He clenched his teeth. Soon, guests would be arriving, and yet, he dared not delay.

"How did you travel here?" he asked the man.

"How d'ye think. On foot."

"Can you ride a horse?"

"Well enough. Grew up on a farm before yer sort turned us out."

Lucien motioned to the footman. "Run to the mews with this man. Tell the grooms to saddle two horses and bring them here."

The pair set out and Lucien strode back into the townhouse, calling for his cloak and hat.

Cassandra stood in the center of the entryway, pale and drawn. "People will start arriving soon. Where are you going?"

"This is something that won't wait."

"Are you even going to tell Grace you're leaving?"

He glanced behind him at the sweep of staircase, wishing he could go to Grace, hold her once more in his arms. "There is no time," he said as he handed Cassandra the note.

She followed him as he hastened outside, passing servants preparing for the arrival of horses and carriages.

"This note…" Cassandra faltered, "it's from the people in the Seven Dials, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"Wait until Simon returns so that he can go with you."

"I need him here to keep all of you safe. I have to go alone. Cass, they won't trust anyone else."

She caught hold of his arm. The first time she had touched him willingly since she returned from Italy. "What if it is a trap?"

It could be.

He covered her hand with his own. "If I don't come back, there is something for you in my bedchamber…a blue tin box…"

"What?"

"Be sure to find it."

He heard the clop of hooves as a groom and the messenger trotted toward them, leading two horses. His heart wrenched as he pictured Grace and the babe he might never see. The child he had not even told anyone existed, the knowledge still a precious secret, too precious to share.

"Cass, no matter what happens, watch over Grace and the child. Promise me."

"The child?"

He looked at his sister, emotions stripped raw. "I am going to be a father…," he said. His voice broke. "Tell Grace I love her."

He swung up on the horse and raced toward Seven Dials.

The crowd gathered outside the Nolans' tenement seethed with agitation, the group parting with hostile glances as Lucien shouldered his way through them. The moment he stepped inside the single room, he smelled the coppery tang of blood and the sourness of fear. The table lay on its side, crockery shattered, a stool splintered as if there had been a fight. The children cowered in the darkest corner, the whites of their eyes visible in the glow of the rush light. Moira Nolan bent over the mattress on which O'Malley lay, his face ashen, blood oozing from a gash on his brow. His arm hung at a strange angle.

"I have a shilling for the first one to bring a surgeon and some whiskey," Lucien barked to the crowd then turned to the Irishman. "What happened here?"

"Darragh. He was talking wild—half out of his head. Clubbed me when I tried…tried to stop him."

"Stop him from what?"

"Damned fool intends to set off a bomb." O'Malley slurred his words. "Kill himself and a whole lot of people. Bastards convinced him…" He leaned over and retched onto the floor.

"Who convinced him?" Lucien demanded. "Radical Chartists? Irish rebels?"

"How many times do I have to tell you! Not us! Rich toffs been paying spies to incite mobs to violence. Darragh Nolan is not the first hired to do their killing. If they make it look like us, they can start another Peterloo and this time crush us completely."

Lucien had heard men in the House of Lords saying they wanted to end things…but to incite a massacre on purpose?

Lucien felt a sick sense of foreboding. "Where is this bombing to take place? Where did Darragh go?"

"Some party at a nob's house. Perfect place to fire up 'ristocrat's rage."

There were society gatherings all over the town tonight, including one at Lucien's own house. The target could be any one of those.

"Darragh is not—not a bad man," Moira Nolan wept. "The men who hired him promised they would take care of me an' the wee ones if he did it. They gave us coin enough that I'll never have to fear again."

"Did Darragh or those men say anything that would give you a clue where he means to strike? Think or people will die!"

"Some fine house is all I know."

Lucien felt a tug on his sleeve. He looked down and saw Sibby Rose, her eyes huge. She handed him a crumpled handkerchief. Blue initials were entwined in a spray of flowers. He'd seen a handkerchief just like it in Grace's hand when she'd pressed it to his chest after Cassandra had wounded him. "Da left this when he sent back the lady's tin soldier."

Lucien turned to ice. "Your father had the tin soldier?"

Sibby nodded.

"He's going to Raven's Court," Lucien said, balling up the embroidered square and thrusting it into his pocket.

Moira grabbed at his arm, her hands like claws. "Don't hurt him!" she sobbed.

Lucien thrust her away. "He's going after my wife! How long have you known?"

He would send the woman to the devil, but his gaze caught on Sibby Rose and Scrap. "Get O'Malley and the family the devil out of here," Lucien told O'Malley's friend. "Hide them well." He thrust pound notes into the man's hand.

Moira wailed. "But I?—"

Lucien turned on her, fierce. "The men who hired Nolan won't leave anyone alive to implicate them."

O'Malley stumbled to his feet. "He's right, Moira. Darragh's a damned fool."

Lucien started for the door, but the Irishman called out. "Wait! Take this!" O'Malley staggered to where the framed sketch of Nolan's face stood on the mantel. He slammed the frame against the wall, breaking it, then pulling the paper free. He thrust it into Lucien's hands. For a moment their eyes caught, held.

Lucien jammed it into the pocket of his coat, then wheeled and shoved his way through the crowd, praying he was not too late.