Page 23 of The Scoundrel of Drury Lane
She had to get out of this house, had to breathe in the night air, had to forget that whispering kiss. It had been a promise, but a promise of what? She was afraid of the answer... and even more afraid of how it made her feel. A kiss like that was as dangerous as a fire upon dry grass in a year without rain. A kiss like that held the promise to burn the world and her with it.
* * *
Kit watchedSuzannah and Henry get into the hired coach, and then he returned to the drawing room. He replayed the evening in his mind, how she’d looked when he’d told her who he was and what he wanted from her. How she’d looked at the scars on his body. He hadn’t seen pity—he’d seencompassion. She’d understood what he’d gone through, and rather than be repulsed, she’d looked as though his pain had become her own.
He hadn’t expected that, to hurt her by showing her what he’d suffered, yet knowing she’d seen him this way and hadn’t run from him gave him hope. Hope forwhathe didn’t know, yet he clung to that fragile emotion nonetheless.
He approached the reading table that bore her sketches with a sense of dread. What would he see? What was heafraidto see? She was a truly gifted artist, and he wasn’t sure he could handle seeing his own truth laid bare by her hand. Was he ready to face the monster depicted on these pieces of paper?
His hands shook as he picked up of the topmost paper. He saw hard lines of charcoal and other shapes before he let his gaze take in the entirety of her work. The sketches, however brief, were like hastily stolen glances into the deepest part of his soul. Fair hands had traced the lines that carved his soul from the hard rock of his rage.
She’d created a vision of truth—half beauty, half despair—with her skilled fingers. The images seemed to whisper to him. He saw hints of what he’d once been, a handsome lad, a lighthearted young man, now torn asunder by the darkness. His eyes, so deeply drawn in shades of gray, demanded that the viewer see what time and suffering had wrought upon him. He had asked her to draw the truth, and these images could not be more true unless she cut his chest open and drew his still-beating heart.
The house around him was still, yet the memories of his past savaged his mind like an unrelenting storm. He stood alone, gazing at the face she had drawn. Memory held such power to harm or heal. Suzannah and her art had chosen to heal, to save, but why? Why had she drawn him as a man and not the monster that so clearly lurked beneath his skin?
His lips still burned sweetly from that kiss. Why had he done that? What had possessed him to kiss her, the daughter of a man who’d caused him so much pain? One word from her father, one denial, and Kit could have been set free. Fresh fury struck him, and he strode toward the fireplace, intending to cast the sketches into the flames, but he halted an instant before he would have tossed the papers into the fire.
Her kiss, the one he’d stolen, however softly, was still there imprinted upon his lips, burning him like the fires of perdition. He didn’t regret that kiss, no matter how confused it made him feel.
Outside, a nightingale began to sing, its lonely song filled with mournful memories. The fire within Kit died as sorrow overcame it. He sank to his knees and let the sketches fall to the floor, far from the reach of the greedy flames. That night, with the quiet solitude cloaking him, he dared to cry for the first time in seven years.
7
Maynard Walsh leaned back in a comfortable lounge chair at White’s, his gentlemen’s club. A glass of warmed brandy swirled in his hand and theMorning Postsat folded on his lap as he savored the late-afternoon quiet. He had been away in Boston for the last seven months, expanding his business, and he was glad to be back in England. He had signed several new contracts that would prove lucrative once he paid off the capital investments used to secure those contracts.
He took a sip of his brandy and unfolded his paper, scanning the articles. He paid most attention to the business articles and less to the society gossip, but as he turned the next page, a name stuck out, a name that sent a knife of terror through him.
Maynard sputtered and dropped his brandy glass. It landed with a soft thump on the carpet, splashing the amber liquid all over his shoes. Forgetting his drink, he placed the paper on the table in front of him and read the article again.
The latest on-dits...rumor has it that Christopher Hollingsworth, the new Earl of Kentwell, has returned to London. Seven years ago, he was convicted of grand larceny and sent to the penal colonies of Australia as a convict. He was recently spotted on Bond Street, accompanied by the Duke of Tiverton. If these rumors prove to be true, it seems Devil’s Square has added a new devil to its ranks.
Maynard’s hands shook as he folded up the paper and got to his feet. “Christ!” With a furtive glance around him, he dashed from the room.
He had to find Thomas Balfour at once.
* * *
Lionel Thistlewaite loweredhis newspaper and stared at the empty seat where moments ago Maynard Walsh had been sitting. A slow grin spread across his face.
“So it begins.” He tossed his paper onto the table and stood. He straightened his coat and followed his quarry out of White’s. Walsh frantically badgered a club servant, demanding his hat and cane. Lionel kept himself at a discreet distance as he collected his hat and gloves, then stepped out onto the street to see where his target was headed.
Walsh flagged down a passing coach, so Lionel did the same. He instructed his driver to follow Walsh at a careful distance until they arrived at their destination.
The plan he and the others had come up with was working. Vincent had fed a story about Kit being seen with Darius to the papers, and it had run that morning as planned. They’d struck the underbrush and now had only to wait and see what would be flushed out. If they had successfully startled Walsh, he might panic and do or say something that would help Kit bring both him and Balfour down.
The two coaches traveled for some minutes before stopping on a street with a row of lavish townhouses. Lionel stepped out of the coach and tossed his driver a few extra coins, asking him to wait. Then he walked discreetly thirty yards behind Walsh. The man dashed up the steps of one of the houses and rapped the knocker frantically. Lionel paused two doors down, lingering to check the small pocket watch that hung from his waistcoat as any gentleman on the street might do.
When Walsh was admitted inside, Lionel came closer to the townhouse, then slipped down the small alley between the home Walsh entered and the one next to it.
The late-afternoon shadows enveloped him as he waited, considering his options. He noticed a pile of wooden crates in the corner by the garden wall. He stacked them on top of one another and then scaled the wall, dropping down the other side and landing in a crouch.
He held his breath, listening for the sounds of servants alerted to his presence, but there were none. The garden behind the house was empty, but the windows were open, and a rush of angry voices carried out on the breeze to Lionel in his hiding spot by the wall.
“What the bloody hell areyoudoing here?” someone shouted. “This is not the place we agreed to meet.” The voice belonged to Thomas Balfour. Lionel scowled in the shadows. But this wasn’t Balfour’s home.
“I know, but this couldn’t wait,” Maynard shot back. “Look at this.”
There was a moment of silence, and then Balfour hissed, “Blast. I paid that captain to kill him. The man swore he threw Hollingsworth overboard once they were out to sea.”
