Chapter 21

T he traffic leading to London's dockyards was impassable. James Barton stuck his head out the carriage window and shouted up at the driver. "I'm getting out here and walking."

"Foine fer yer ta say, now as ye have me tangled in this broil and no fare fer me trouble. ‘Tain't goin' to be easy work turnin' round," the driver said sourly, and spat.

James tossed him several coins and clambered down out of the carriage. It was only a few miles to where the Sea Witch was moored. He'd promised Thomas he would take the Cape route, and that he would, two days hence. In fact, today he was making a preliminary inspection of his ship preparatory to sailing.

Besides, 'Twould help pass the time, especially since he'd decided it wouldn't do for him to call on pretty Sarah Leighton three afternoons in a row. He'd been spending too much time in Miss Leighton's company since Fia had disappeared and Thomas had gone chasing off in a half-crippled vessel, to God knows where.

The day he'd taken Miss Leighton and Pip from St. James Park he'd been impressed by her gentility and concern for her brother. The next day he'd returned the shawl she'd left in his carriage, and she'd invited him in to thank him properly for his aid. From there one thing had led to another until he'd found himself in danger of monopolizing her time.

"Barton!"

James wheeled around, looking for the source of that imperious voice.

"Here, sir!" On the street where traffic had come to a standstill, a silver-topped walking stick emerged from the window of a black-lacquered carriage and struck the door. Within the interior James could just make out two figures, one cadaverously thin, the other wearing a puffed and piled wig atop a handsome countenance. Lord Carr.

"Don't stand there gawking, sir," the voice commanded. "Come here."

It had been exactly what he and Fia had wanted, for Carr to seek James out and demand to be made a part of his insurance swindle. James would agree only if Carr signed over Bramble House, which he, in turn, would deed to Fia. But now that the moment was here James felt a tingle of fear.

Of Carr. James Barton had always confronted danger head on but he'd never before had the sensation of willingly putting himself in the presence of true evil. He did so now as he reluctantly unlatched the door.

"Get in. Get in, I say, Barton."

For Fia , James thought, and entered the carriage.

Inside, Carr sat across the narrow confines from Lord Tunbridge, long rumored to be Carr's familiar and his agent of ruination. Carr motioned for James to take the seat beside Tunbridge, and James did so. Tunbridge did not glance his way but sat as still as an automaton awaiting Carr's hand to wind it up.

Carr regarded James from behind hooded lids. His long, elegant fingers relaxed over the knob of the walking cane. "Been a long time, eh, Barton?"

"Indeed, sir," James replied.

Carr's mobile mouth curved. "Imagine you've been expectin' me, what with Fia's tiresome machinations and all."

James could not keep the surprise from registering on his face. Carr saw it and chuckled. "I fear Fia grew simpleminded while living on that Scottish farm. Of course I know what she's up to. She's my get, ain't she?"

James swallowed; the evil he knew resided in this man had revealed itself. It was in his voice, the viscous, near sexual exultance of his triumph.

Carr's smile abruptly dissolved. His gaze lifted past James's face to stare out the window. "That's right, Janet!" he said. "I knew as soon as Fia told me about Barton's affection for the country what she was after, just like I know what you want!"

Startled, James looked around. A crush of working-class people moved slowly along the sidewalk, past their vehicle. Within the churning crowd he thought he glimpsed a lady's fine skirts and a fashionable hat.

"What're you lookin' at, sir?" Carr demanded. "I'm speaking to you!"

Confounded anew, James turned back. Beside him Tunbridge remained fixed and unseeing, but his aquiline nostrils spread in a subtle expression of derision.

An evil glint had entered Carr's brilliant sapphire eyes. Was this some sort of game Carr played with him? James wondered in disgust.

He was a simple, forthright man, but in the few short moments James had spent in Carr's company, he realized the magnitude of Carr's madness and the lengths to which he would go to win. He should have realized it before. They should have realized it.

How could Fia and he ever hope to win against the likes of Carr? Had Carr not killed Fia's mother and the two other wives that followed? And most probably others, as well .

The thought made James tense. Carr saw his reaction, relished it.

"The reason I stopped you, sir," Carr said, "is this. I have a message for my darling Fia. Please convey to her that your little scheme has floundered rather badly, almost as badly as, say, the Alba Star will shortly."

James stared. "I don't take your meaning, sir."

Carr laughed with delight. "I can see that you don't! Let me apprise you, Barton, that you may recount it to Fia. I should like to tell her myself but I am this moment embarking on a trip to the continent and thus must forgo that singular pleasure.

"To begin with"—he laced his hands atop the knob of his walking stick and leaned forward—"I like this little insurance hoax of yours and I commend you on its previous successes." Carr nodded pleasantly.

Good, thought James, Carr had bought in to the rumors Fia and he had so carefully spread. Perhaps there was a chance after all.

"But Fia should have realized I would never seek to become part of your little couplet."

James's hopes wavered.

"Any man I associate with in such a venture is a man I own." He settled back and sighed. "I don't own you, sir. Yet. It is a situation that I shall look into remedying."

Before James could reply, Carr waved his cane gently in the air. "I do , however, own your partner, Thomas … Donne, I believe he calls himself? And him I've made my partner."

The air in the small, shadowed carriage suddenly seemed dense. A cold finger touched the base of James's spine. His fear for Thomas increased even as his hopes for his and Fia's plans collapsed. Carr in league with Thomas? It made no sense! Why would Thomas not have told him? How did Carr own Thomas?

There was no possible way to salvage any of Fia's plan, but at least he could try to protect Thomas.

"What sort of blackmail have you on Thomas?" he demanded.

"You mean you don't know? Tch-tch . And here I'd been led to believe you were such good friends," Carr returned blandly.

"I don't care what Thomas did, or rather what you say he did!" James said angrily.

"Don't you?" Carr asked. "That's good, because if Thomas didn't see fit to tell you about his past, it certainly wouldn't be my place to do so, don't you think?"

"You miserable bastard," James ground out.

Carr's bright eyes went flat. "Careful," he warned.

There was nothing James could do. Even if he were to offer himself or his ship in Thomas's stead, it would do no good. Carr was not the sort of man to honor a pact.

"Do your damnedest, Carr," James said, his outrage thickening his voice. "You have pathetic horrors like this creature"—he jerked his head in Tunbridge's direction—"willing to do your bidding no matter how filthy the work is. Between the two of you, you may even be able to ruin my shipping business."

This time 'twas James who leaned forward, his blunt face bright with blood. "Try . I'm leaving in two days for the Cape. Even a creature like you might find it a challenge to work your evil that far afield. And I tell you this, when I leave I shall be glad not to have to share the same air with you!"

Without another utterance, James jerked down on the door handle and kicked the plush-lined door open. He jumped from the carriage to the ground, shoving his way angrily through the crowd.

Inside the carriage Tunbridge watched him go. "Shall I challenge him to a duel?"

"Duel?" Carr blinked. "No," he said after a moment's consideration. "No duel. I'll deal with him later. Right now I am more interested in what he said. It disturbs me."

"And what was that?" Tunbridge asked dutifully, though no interest colored his voice. Nothing much colored Tunbridge's voice anymore.

"Barton said he would be leaving for the Cape."

"Yes?"

"I could have sworn that was the route Thomas Donne was to have sailed. Which leaves me to wonder"—his gaze wandered toward the window—"just where and what he is up to.

"And did you note Barton's surprise when I told him to convey my message to Fia? I swear he has not the vaguest notion where she is, which seems rather odd for two people supposedly in league, does it not?"

"Not particularly," Tunbridge said after a moment. "You and I have been ‘in league' for years—or so most people would assume. Yet I rarely know what you are doing or where or with whom. Perhaps the apple has not fallen so far from the tree," he suggested bitterly, "and she feels no need to confide in her toadies, either."

The idea found merit with Carr, for he pursed his lips thoughtfully. "You may be right. And I did tell her to be circumspect. But I dislike these little discrepancies." He rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Still, I have plans in France. A certain alliance to secure. I would dislike even more having to postpone that. So …"

"So I will stay here and try to determine if Fia and Donne are partnered?"

"Yes. Look for anything that suggests that Fia has plotted at a deeper level than I assumed, and I have been—" He could not finish his sentence, the word "duped" in association with himself was simply too onerous to consider. Of course Fia had not plotted with Donne from the beginning. The notion was preposterous.

"And if I do find evidence?" Tunbridge asked.

"Then you have my permission to make them suffer. Both of them."

A little flicker of interest arose in Tunbridge's sunken eyes. "Aye?"

"Suffer, but not die," Carr clarified. "Do nothing to drive Donne away. Should they have plotted against me, I want to be the one to inform the authorities that Thomas Donne is in reality Thomas McClairen, transported for crimes against the Crown. I want to be the one that sends him to the gallows." His smile was like a wound. "Indeed, I insist on it."

Tunbridge left Carr at the quay where the ship sailing for Le Havre was berthed. He did not bother bidding his master adieu and he received no further words of any kind from Carr, though occasionally Carr would lean forward, peer out the window, and address his dead wife.

The man was mad, Tunbridge allowed, calling for the driver to take him to where the Alba Star had been berthed. But as was the way of madmen, Carr was also canny and unnaturally perceptive and certainly more dangerous, because these days he was influenced only by his own whims.

Tunbridge knew well how swift and irrevocable Carr's whimsy could be—he'd been the instrument of those whims on more than one occasion. Twice he'd been an instrument of death. He very well might be again.

He thought all this without any perceptible heightening of emotion, not dread or disgust or exultance or even fear. Most of his emotions had bled from him years ago. More than anything else these days, he felt odd that he didn't feel odd. He'd arrived at that place where a man is a curiosity to himself and only vaguely alarmed by the realization.

Once on the pier, Tunbridge spent a half hour questioning, threatening, and bribing until he'd secured the information that Thomas Donne had left port fifteen days ago and that a lady had been seen embarking a short time before the ship set sail. Whether or not that "lady" had disembarked, Tunbridge was unable to ascertain.

He returned to the waiting carriage and gave the driver instructions to Fia's town house. During the ride he tried with little success to keep his thoughts from Fia Merrick and her probable liaison with yet another man.

Once he'd loved Fia with all the passionate intensity he nowadays managed to invoke only on the killing fields. He'd wanted her above all things and had been young enough, or perhaps still human enough, to believe he could have her.

Not only Carr, but also the beautiful Fia herself had disabused him of that notion. Both had been cruel, but his interview with Fia had been by far the worse. She'd looked at him without a shred of interest, her bright blue eyes as reflective and blank as silvered glass. She'd not even offered him the slight salve of hostility. Only utter disinterest and a simple, irrevocable "no."

She hadn't bothered to explain, or blame, or revile his black nature or his infamy. She hadn't even bothered to laugh. Just "no." He'd been a thing to her.

He was a thing. Carr had made him such slowly, degree by degree, sucking him dry of his humanity. If only he'd had the balls to take his chances with the magistrates twenty years ago when he'd killed a tavern maid in a drunken fit. But he hadn't. He'd run away, certain his secret was safe. But—a grim smile twisted his lips—one was never safe from one's actions. Carr had been there that night. Oh, he'd not witnessed the murder himself, but he'd found a witness who'd signed a sworn statement attesting to his guilt. He had been under Carr's thumb ever since.

Tunbridge jerked his head up, his gaze locked unseeingly outside the carriage. Oh, well .

There was nothing he could do for it now and at least he could soothe himself with the notion that Fia was no less a "thing" than he. He'd seen her. He'd watched all these years since she'd refused him, and he knew that no man, particularly that Scots fool she'd wed, had ever brought her a moment's honest joy. She was as incapable of it as Carr. As Tunbridge himself.

And it made him glad.

He relaxed, pondering the bit of information Carr had uncharacteristically let slip. So, Thomas Donne was a McClairen. It surprised Tunbridge that Carr should have held this piece of information so long without making use of it. If he hadn't made use of it.

The carriage drew to a halt, and with a start Tunbridge realized that an hour had passed since he'd left the dockyards. The door swung open and the driver pulled out the steps and stood back as Tunbridge emerged.

He climbed the steps to the town house and rapped on the lacquered front door. It opened upon the autocratic countenance of a butler, who bowed and said, "A good afternoon to you, sir, but I regret that my mistress is not presently at home."

"Oh, that's quite all right," Tunbridge said, stepping inside. "For 'tis you I've come to see."

Tunbridge left the town house twenty minutes later, having the information he'd sought. The stately butler had taken quite a bit of persuading. It would take him a long time to regain his self-esteem and forget that ultimately his fear had outstripped his loyalties. It was a lesson, Tunbridge knew, that could … damage a man if repeated too often. Not that it was any of Tunbridge's concern.

The butler had confirmed that Fia had left the town house the same day that Thomas Donne, born McClairen, had sailed. The suggestive indications that Fia was bestowing on another man that which Tunbridge had once so fervently sought sent an unaccustomed wave of vitriol coursing through his thin body. His hatred piled atop his grievances, and underlying both yawned a chasm of unarticulated loss.

Oh, yes, Lord Carr , he thought grimly as he drove away, I will most certainly punish them both .