Page 7 of To Tame the Wild Rake
Nonetheless, she dropped into one of the chairs by the window, releasing him to sit on a footstool to tug on his most comfortable boots. “Perhaps, while I get ready, you could tell me what you require from me?”
She regarded him solemnly for a moment, then blurted, “I want you to take me to Devil’s Kitchen to rescue a boy I have been sponsoring. I believe he has been kidnapped by the villain who calls himself the Beast. I believe the man wants him… Has an unhealthy purpose… Is interested…” She blushed, unable to voice her suspicions.
Aldridge nodded. “I understand. The ‘Beast’ has a certain unsavoury reputation for preferring very young boys.” He paused, his mind focused on strategy. Talking Lady Charlotte out of her mission wasn’t going to work, and nor was going into a neighbourhood like the Devil’s Kitchen. Not even with an army of thief takers. Or militia, for that matter.
Aldridge had waited two and half years for her to ask something from him. Why did she want something so impossible?
“Who is this boy?” he asked. ‘I believe’, she had said. She was a clever and competent woman. She wouldn’t assume the boy had been kidnapped without evidence, but even so, she might be wrong. He hoped. “Are you sure he has been taken? Might he have gone of his own accord?”
Charlotte’s glare was withering. “No,” she said. She relaxed her indignation sufficiently to explain. “Tony said the man was after him. He came to beg me to take him out of London. He was afraid, Aldridge. I told him we would leave tomorrow, but I came back from a meeting this evening, and he was gone.”
She grimaced. “The man calling himself the Beast is Wharton, the man who attempted to kidnap my cousin Ruth and the Earl of Ashbury’s daughter. A friend of Tony’s is the Beast’s ‘pet’, and Tony knew full well what the Beast had in mind.”
Aldridge frowned. “Wharton has gone. He was arrested and held for trial, but managed to escape and get away. The West Indies, I heard.”
Charlotte shook her head. “That is what we believed, but my uncle has discovered that he is still here, hiding out in the slums, his appearance disguised.”
Aldridge opened a cabinet on his wall and fetched out his duelling pistols. After a moment’s thought, he added a knife in a sheath he could strap to his wrist, and another larger one that belted around his waist. “I don’t suppose you have any of your scary Easterners with you?”
“Three,” Charlotte said. “I hope that makes you feel better.”
“Certainly,” Aldridge agreed. “Four—” he caught her eye and bowed “—five people against hundreds is much better odds than two.” He opened the door into the passage and called out, “Richards! I want James and Matthew, armed and with me in one minute flat.”
Two of the warriors who had accompanied the Winderfields from their Central Asian mountains were leaning against the wall and straightened to exchange bows with Aldridge. He called back over his shoulder, “Lady Charlotte, do you have a carriage or horses?”
“Horses.” Charlotte joined him and her men in the passage. Aldridge’s usual reaction to her proximity was untimely. He ignored it.
“Richards! Horses for three! And ready another carriage for the two ladies in the next room. I’ll be needing the one that is waiting.” Poor Richards would have to keep Lady Thirby and Mrs Meecham from tearing the house apart while their transport home was prepared. “If we can find the boy,” he told Charlotte, “hiding him in a carriage is probably a good idea, and we don’t know what his condition will be.”
The senior Winshire retainer nodded approval.
“Can we hurry?” Charlotte tapped one foot, impatiently, as two of Aldridge’s most competent footmen hurried up. Both had been soldiers, and both could be trusted to defend the lady with their lives.
“This way.” Aldridge waved Charlotte ahead of him down the stairs and out of the door that let on to the mews courtyard. “I am pleased to be of service, of course, but may I ask why you sought my aid?”
“Uncle James is out of town and Drew has a meeting in Southampton and won’t be back until tomorrow. Yahzak refused to… Well, I needed someone who understands London slums.” She passed him as they came out into the courtyard, where another Winshire retainer sat on one of their magnificent horses while holding the reins of three more. Grooms held three of the Haverford steeds, and a driver and groom clambered up onto a blank anonymous carriage.
It had languished at the back of the carriage house during Aldridge’s celibacy, until tonight. Well, there was another with only minor decoration and no scutcheons. The ladies upstairs could take that.
Lady Charlotte paused beside her horse and looked back over her shoulder. “Besides, I think Tony might be your son.”
4
Even before she disturbed Aldridge at his pleasures, Charlotte had expected to be turned away. When she walked in on him entertaining two naked women, she had almost turned around again and left immediately, certain her interruption would secure her immediate eviction. Only her pride kept her in place, allowed her to demand his help.
Her pride and her howling panic at what might be happening to Tony.
Aldridge had confounded her expectations by immediately agreeing to come with her. Thank goodness. She needed someone who knew the underbelly of London, and Aldridge was reportedly an expert. Or had been. Again, rumour said he no longer frequented the brothels and gaming kens.
Though clearly, he brought those same activities home. She should not care what he had been doing. What was it to Charlotte, after all, if Aldridge had two women in his bed? Two! To think Charlotte had nearly been taken in by the stories that he had given up his tomcat behaviour. To find the gossip wrong should not have been a surprise. But it was.
Not a disappointment. It was not her place to be disappointed.
Her next stop would have been the Ashbury household. Her cousin Ruth’s husband had been a soldier, but he lacked a hand and didn’t know London at all. Besides, she wasn’t even sure the Ashburys had arrived back from a visit to Sussex. They were due this week, but no message had been sent to the Winshire mansion to announce their arrival.
She didn’t have a third option—no-one else she could depend upon to support her, and to attempt to rescue a child from the slums just because she cared. How annoying to find out that Aldridge was the only man outside of her immediate family that she trusted.
“If you and I ride in the carriage, Lady Charlotte,” said Aldridge, “you can tell me where you think the boy has been taken and we can work out who we need to talk to in order to find him. I am thinking that my brother Wakefield might be useful, so I’ve instructed the coachman to take us there first.”
