Page 8 of To Tame the Wild Rake
It was a small detour and a good idea. Aldridge’s base-born half-brother and his wife were successful thief takers, and had been very helpful to the Winshires during the troubles with Wharton last year. Come to think of it, they were probably the source of the latest intelligence.
Nonetheless, Charlotte fretted about the delay and Aldridge’s arrogant assumption of command, even while she told him as succinctly as possible about Tony and her reasons for fearing he’d been taken.
He asked few questions, and nodded at her conclusions. “So. We need to find out if the Beast has him at Heaven and Hell, or whether he is being held somewhere else.”
“Heaven and Hell?” Charlotte asked.
“He is master of a gambling den called Hell, which contains a—er—a place of assignation above, which he has called Heaven. Good L—gracious, I wonder if the bawd upstairs is his sister, Lady Ashbury? Word in the clubs is that she speaks like a lady, but is always masked. Her customers say she is haughtier than a duchess. They think it a fine joke.”
“Lady Ashbury? As the madam in a brothel?” Charlotte tried to imagine the haughty countess, widow of the Earl of Ashbury’s brother, in such a role. The lady had also been sentenced to transportation for the plot to kidnap Ashbury’s daughter and the attempted murder of Charlotte’s cousin, now Ashbury’s wife. Wharton had found a way to stay in England. Why not his sister?I will need to tell Uncle James.And Ruth.
Aldridgeshrugged. “Wakefield might know. We’ll be there in a minute, Lady Charlotte. Before we arrive, you mentioned that this boy might be my son? Is that what he claims?”
Charlotte bristled at the term. “He does not ‘claim’ anything, except that his father was an aristocrat who was his mother’s protector at one time. Or at least her lover. I suspect the relationship was over before Tony was born, since he says he never met his father. She wouldn’t tell Tony much about him—said she had been paid to stay away.”
Charlotte growled the last bit. Whether the funds given to the poor woman when she reported her pregnancy were inadequate, or whether she wasted them, the fact remained that Tony was living in the worst sort of slum when Charlotte met him. No man should wipe his hands of a child he had engendered, however unintended and unwanted.
Aldridge was frowning, so Charlotte gave him her best evidence. “I guessed him to be yours because he looks just like the painting of you and your brother that hangs in your mother’s private sitting room. Also, there is the name.” Aldridge had been baptised Anthony plus a string of other names, as had his father, though she had never heard either of them called anything but their title.
The marquis lifted an eyebrow, but didn’t comment on the coincidence of name. “It was a good likeness, my mother says, so I imagine he is of Haverford blood. I would need to know more about the circumstances to venture a guess as to which of the Haverford men might be responsible. I can assure you that I am not in the habit of abandoning my responsibilities, but he might still be mine. If she approached my father instead of me… It would not be the only time that he dismissed a child or a grandchild born on the wrong side of the blanket.”
The carriage pulled up, and Aldridge leaned forward, then stopped with his hand on the door’s latch. “How old did you say the boy was, my lady? I was eleven when that portrait was painted, so around that age?”
The door opened, and one of the footmen let down the steps.
Charlotte leaned forward as Aldridge descended and turned to hold out his hand. “Twelve, he says,” she replied, as she put her hand in his. “He lived with his mother until he was nine, so I expect he knows.”
The other footman was knocking on the door of the tidy townhouse before them. It opened as Charlotte and Aldridge mounted the steps. “Claridge,” Aldridge greeted the servant who stood in the gap. “Lady Charlotte and I are here to see Mr and Mrs Wakefield. Are they receiving? It is a matter both professional and personal.”
The butler bowed. “If you and the lady would care to wait inside, my lord?”
“Also, Yahzak Beg, my guard commander,” Charlotte insisted. Yahzak was at her elbow, his nostrils slightly flared and his eyes shifting from shadow to shadow as he kept watch on the street around them.
He nodded his approval even as the butler stood to one side to let them enter. Charlotte awarded the proper Englishman and the mountain warrior equal points for imperturbability, as each pretended to be completely at ease.
The butler showed them into the room where the Wakefields met with clients and occasionally, when they brought work home, interviewed witnesses and suspects. Aldridge had been taken upstairs to the family parlour last time he had called, but presumably Claridge considered his companions not worthy of that privilege.
He and Charlotte took seats opposite the desk that dominated one end of the room. Yahzak chose to prowl the room, examining the objects on the chimney piece and lifting one corner of a drape so he could peer outside.
David Wakefield ushered his wife Prue ahead of him into the room, and Aldridge stood to greet them. Prue’s gaze moved from him to Charlotte and back again, her eyes lively with curiosity. “Prue. David,” he greeted them. “My apologies for intruding on your evening. Lady Charlotte, have you met my brother David and his wife?”
He waved a hand in the direction of Charlotte’s escort, his eyes on Prue. “And this is the head of Lady Charlotte’s guard detail, Yahzak Beg. I understand that ‘Beg’ is an honorific; something between our ‘mister’ and our ‘lord’.” Yahzak inclined his head, some slight crinkling around the outside of his eyes indicating amusement.
“We have met in the company of my godmother, the Duchess of Haverford,” Charlotte said to Prue. “Thank you for seeing us this evening, Mrs Wakefield.”
David clearly felt enough time had been spent on social trivialities. “Professional and personal?” he asked Aldridge, as he moved a chair closer to the pair Aldridge had chosen and handed his wife into it.
Aldridge nodded, taking his own seat again. “Lady Charlotte came to me with a problem this evening, and we need your advice on how to solve it. Lady Charlotte? Will you tell them about Tony? And what you think has happened to him?”
David pulled up his own chair and sat beside Prue. Both Wakefields focussed their attention on Charlotte.
One of the many things Aldridge loved about the lady who wouldn’t be his was her clear, incisive mind. She started with a summary: that her protege had been kidnapped by the Beast and was in immediate danger of abuse, and that she intended to rescue him. She then listed the reasons for her conclusions.
David interrupted once, to comment that he was aware of the Beast’s identity, as his firm was the source of the Duke of Winshire’s information. Prue grimaced and nodded at the reference to the Beast’s proclivities. Otherwise, they sat silent and watchful until Charlotte was finished.
“You’ll want to get into the club Wharton and his partner run,” David deduced, after a thoughtful silence. “It is larger than it appears. The buildings in the next street are connected, and the principals have apartments there, but they are extremely well guarded.”
“A likely place to keep the boy, though,” Aldridge suggested.
