Page 55 of To Tame the Wild Rake
“He came and begged me to protect him. You were a man grown, and he was a little boy in your power.”
“Liar,” Wharton screamed again. “You took him away from me and you will have to pay!” But his gun did not waver from the hall boy’s head. Matthew. The boy’s name was Matthew, and he was Richards’ grandson.
“Your plot has failed, Wharton,” Aldridge told the villain. “Even as we speak, the Prince Regent and Queen Charlotte have intervened to kill the lies you spread.”
“But they are not all lies, are they? And people will always wonder, especially about your saintly whore. Did she pant for you Aldridge? Or did she say her prayers while you rode her? Everyone knows she is your lover, Aldridge. She is ruined.”
“Have a care, Wharton. You speak of the Duchess of Haverford.”
“No!” It was another screech. “You lie! She refused you, and how I laughed when I heard it.”
“But today, she accepted me, and agreed to allow me to use the special licence I fetched from Doctor’s Commons this very day.” Aldridge bowed slightly. If Wharton shifted just a little more, Aldridge could target his heart while avoiding the boy. “I have you to thank for her willingness to wed straight away, Wharton.”
But Wharton pulled the boy tighter across his chest, growling deep in his throat. “I hate you. I hate you.”
“Got it.” The voice came from the shadows and Thomas stood, a box-like object in his hand. “I have disarmed the timing mechanism, Aldridge, and removed the firing device from the fuse and the fuse from the container of powder.”
“No-o-o!” Wharton heaved the boy from him and fired wildly in Aldridge’s direction as he rolled from the bed and hurled himself through the window, bursting the mullions.
Aldridge went straight over the bed and Richards around, but by the time they reached the window, Wharton was disappearing behind the hedge at the bottom of the stairs into the garden. Aldridge fired anyway, but the chancy shot missed.
“Quick,” he said to Richards. “Get out searchers. Be careful. He’s armed and dangerous.”
He led the way down the stairs and out of the library into the garden, then followed in the direction Wharton had been running—towards the river.
The garden was designed to trick the eye with a series of vistas, and even in the fickle twilight, they would not have been able to see far ahead, but they could hear Wharton giggling as he ran. “Have a care,” Aldridge called back to those who followed.
But there was no ambush, no explosion. Instead, as they reached the water gate that opened to the Thames, Wharton pushed a boat from the wharf and rowed out into the river, there to back his oars to keep from running with the current.
“Catch me if you can!” he shouted, and then stroked into the water and shot off down river towards London.
“It’s a trap, my lord. Your Grace,” Richards suggested.
Almost certainly. “We can’t let him get away again,” Aldridge replied.
“I know where he lives,” said Mullins. “I can show you, my lord.”
Aldridge made up his mind, pointing to several of the footmen and to the remaining pleasure boats tied up to the wharf. “You, you, and you. Follow Wharton. Stay out of pistol range, but see where he goes.” He turned to the grooms. “You and you, saddle a horse and chase the boats downriver. Try to keep them in sight, if you can. Take extra horses for the footmen. The rest of you”—he nodded to the other grooms—“saddle horses as fast as you can. I want to leave here within minutes. I’ll take you and you as backup, so go with Richards and he’ll make sure you’re armed. Thomas and Jamir, take a horse each and return home. Tell the Duke of the Winshire I need help. What is the address, Mullins?”
They were nearly as fast as he hoped. He was on the road less than ten minutes after Wharton was swept away, and the man’s address was some distance from the river, so if he was heading to his own place, he would need to cross almost a mile of streets.
It was a good time of day to gallop hell for leather through Chelsea, Knightsbridge, and Mayfair. Tradespeople had ceased their deliveries and most of thetonwere not yet on their way to their evening entertainments. Still, people turned to stare as Aldridge, with the two boys close and the grooms trailing, raced along the streets, at one point leaping over a cart that was turned across the way.
They had left the grooms far behind when Aldridge drew his horse up at the turn where the boys needed to peel off for the Winshire mansion. He pointed, and they grimaced, but obeyed.
Alone, now, he set his horse back to the gallop, murmuring into its mane, “Not far now. Good boy. Good boy.”
It was a narrow townhouse in a row. The door was wide open.
Aldridge hitched the horse to the area railing, and drew the pistol, which he had reloaded while waiting for the horses. He should wait for the others, but if Wharton was in there and had another device, there wasn’t time.
He ignored the open door, instead creeping down the area steps and trying the door into the kitchen. It was unlocked, and the kitchen showed signs of having been hastily abandoned. As he crept up the stairs, he could hear Wharton singing, in a rich mellow tenor which somehow added to the discordance of the particularly filthy lyrics.
The man was sitting on a chair facing the door, a gun in his hand and another of those devices at his feet. Aldridge had a clear shot, but hesitated. The man was an evil fiend, had earned death for any of dozens of illegal acts, and had, in fact, been condemned to hang.I can’t shoot him in the back.
But if he spoke, he might miss his shot. And then it was too late. Mullins burst in the front door, screaming, “Where is my sister? Where is my sister?”
Wharton calmly shot him in the shoulder, which punched him backwards. No help there. The gun was a repeater. Aldridge took aim, but before he could resolve the dilemma of whether or not to shoot without announcing himself, Wharton decided to taunt Mullins.
