Page 47 of A Sham Engagement

“Edward!” Jack was standing in the center of a little clearing of trees at the side of the road, his figure clear as the moon emerged, his head flung back, listening hard after every call. No answer though.

A carriage clattered past, wheels rattling in the ruts and lamps shimmering front and back, its passengers oblivious to their quest.

Elenora stumbled over something soft and nearly fell to her knees. For a dreadful moment, her heart lurched almost into her mouth, if that were even possible. Was it a body? Taking her courage in both hands she bent and groped with her hands. Something soft… and woolly. A scarf. She gathered it up and pressed it to her nose. It smelled of small boy and carbolic soap. It had to be Edward’s. And beside it, something else, round with a stiffness to its wide brim. A hat. Old and no doubt smelly—she could feel the grease of long wear inside the rim with her fingers. She held this to her nose, as well. About it hung the distinct smell of tobacco and tar.

“Jack, over here.” She stood up, clutching both items to her chest.

He was with her in a moment. “What is it?”

She thrust the hat and scarf into his hands and by the dim moonlight saw him stare down at them, his face contorting. As she had done, he lifted the scarf to his nose. “It’s Edward’s.”

“And the hat? Could it belong to one of the men who took him?”

Slowly, Jack inclined his head, his eyes dark pools she couldn’t read. “It could.” He hesitated. “And I think I recognize it. I think a man’s been following me. I’ve seen him a few times but, like a fool, dismissed it as coincidence.” He sniffed the malodorous hat. “The man I saw wore a hat very like this one. A sailor’s tarred hat. I know many men in London probably wear hats like this—old sailors and those on leave from their ships. But the man I saw smoked a pipe continuously. Again, many men do just that. But I saw this man more than once, and I refuse to accept it as coincidence.” Bitterness filled his voice, perhaps at not having taken more notice of this man before.

Elenora put her hand on his arm. “Someone was truly following you?”

“Yes. I’m sure of it… now.”

The crackle of paper sounded as Jack screwed up Edward’s scarf in his fingers.

Elenora grabbed it out of his hands. “What’s that? I heard paper crunch.”

Jack snatched at the scarf but Elenora was unfolding it. Sure enough, someone had pinned a dog-eared piece of paper to its center. She peered at the ill formed writing. “I can’t read it in this light.”

He took it from her, pulling her back toward the nearest fog-bound streetlamp. “Oh my God.”

“What is it? What does it say?”

In silence, his mouth set in a hard line, he handed it to her.

hes my boi now

She looked up. “His boy? Edward? What does this mean?”

Jack’s angry hands squeezed about the hat, deforming it, as he shook his head. “I have no idea, but it seems whoever’s taken Edward thinks to goad me. No need. I’m already fit to kill on sight.”

Elenora glanced over her shoulder at the pressing darkness. “What are we going to do?”

Jack grimaced. “I’m going to get him back, and I’m going to make the bastards who’ve done this wish they’d never crossed me. But first, I need to find some help. I know someone with connections who might be able to help me find who has Edward and come upon them from behind. If they can be persuaded to help, that is. We didn’t exactly part as friends, but he has the whole of the rookeries at his fingertips. He knows everything that goes on within his manor.” He seized her hand. “Come on.”

At about the same time as Jack and Elenora were finding the scarf and hat on the edge of Marylebone Park, Aunt Penelope, who’d returned home from her visit just before dark to find Elenora’s hastily scribbled message that she’d gone to Portland Place with Jack, was just beginning to feel anxious about her charge’s continued absence.

She rang the bell for Hemmings, who promptly arrived in the drawing room, his face a picture of imperturbability as he bowed to her. “You rang, my lady?”

She nodded with unaccustomed vigor. “What time was it that my niece went out with Lord Broxbourne? The precise time, that is.”

Hemmings’s brow furrowed as he thought. Perhaps she was asking too much of her busy butler. But no, his face cleared. “I believe it was a little after two, my lady, as the clock in the hall had just struck the hour.”

“And the time now is?” Why ladies didn’t carry pocket watches, she had no idea. She could certainly do with one but had nowhere about her person she could stow it. And there was no clock in the drawing room because her late husband had ordered it taken out. He’d never liked to be controlled by a clock. She made a mental note to have the servants find it from wherever it had been stowed and reinstate it.

Hemmings, however, was as good as a clock. “Just gone half past five, my lady. Dinner will be served shortly, if you would like me to send Johnson up to help you dress.” The fact that Elenora had not yet returned seemed to have escaped him.

Aunt Penelope shook her head. “No. Inform Cook that dinner will be delayed until Miss Wetherby returns.” She tutted in anxiety. “And can you send one of the footmen—Robert will do—round to Lord Broxbourne’s to escort Miss Wetherby home as it’s now been dark for an hour. I don’t want her walking back with just her maid to protect her. The streets aren’t safe nowadays.” She tutted again, dropping her voice to a mutter. “Really, Lord Broxbourne shouldn’t have allowed her to stay out so long. Although perhaps he is bringing her back in his carriage. There is that.” She looked up. “Off you go, Hemmings. The sooner we have her back, the sooner we can have dinner.”

Chapter Eighteen

Jack led Elenora on down London’s lamplit streets deeper into the foggy recesses of the city she’d probably never have guessed existed. He kept one hand firmly on his cane, ready to react should anything untoward happen. The reassuring weight of the pistols in his great coat pockets, a pair of half-stocked saw-handled dueling pistols by Parker that his father had given him when he came of age, bumped him as he hurried along. Showing admirable sense, she kept close to him, her fingers tightly intertwined with his own. Good. He’d known she possessed commonsense, and this proved it.