The Earl's American Heiress. Carol Arens

Three

      “It’s the devil’s own night, my lord,” stated Charles Creed, the only coachman Heath trusted to accompany him on the night’s errand.

      “Not so different from any other night so close to Whitechapel,” he answered, tugging the brim of a black hat low over his brow. He withdrew the dark mask he was about to tie over his face and gripped it tight in his fingers.

      “It’s just that the fog is so yellow and foul. An evil presence is what it is. Who can tell what wickedness it’s hiding.”

      “It’s hiding us.”

      “And a lucky thing. Looks like the baron is getting worried. There’s two guards by the back door tonight.”

      Heath would ask if Creed wanted to wait a few streets away but he already knew the answer would be no.

      They sat side by side, pretending to be laughing at some ribald joke as they passed the door. The guards glanced up and then away.

      “Wish we knew when the girl was bringing the baby,” Creed whispered when they rounded the corner of the building. “It’s not safe business circling the block.”

      “Nothing about this is safe.”

      “Which is why you should quit and leave it to me,” the coachman said.

      No doubt Creed was correct. Heath was a man under great obligation.

      “It takes two of us to get the children safely away.”

      “I’ll be right relieved when we can expose the blackguard for good and all.”

      Exposing a supposed saint would be a difficult thing to do, especially in this case.

      The baron had several benefactors of high rank. He was highly respected by all of society. His good deeds were touted in the newspaper on a regular basis. Even his cousin was a judge of much influence in London.

      No, anyone who went to inspect Slademore House would see what Heath had when he’d first gone to ask for Willa’s baby: well-cared-for children doted upon by a loving staff, and fed tarts and treats on a regular basis. They would be gratified to see their generous donations being put to good use.

      But they would not have seen what Heath had when, his mind full of questions, he’d gone looking further.

      Clearly no one suspected a man who sat in the first pew at church every Sunday to be a greedy soul.

      “Don’t you wonder, Creed, why no one ever questions how Slademore manages to dress in such riches? Why that little dog he carries about wears real jewels in his collar?”

      “Oh, aye, many times. I think folks are just blinded by him being so angelic-looking.”

      Yes, and hadn’t Satan been reputed to be the same?

      Leaping off the bench to the ground, Heath nodded up at Creed.

      “We have help, though,” Creed said. “There’s our informer. It’s not only us to help the children.”

      Without this mysterious ally, they could do nothing. Heath could only assume it was the person who had left the door unlocked for him when he’d rescued Willa’s daughter.

      Without the notes Creed received, they could not do this.

      While Heath climbed into the interior of the carriage, Creed changed his coat and his hat. The same pair of men in the same coach would draw the attention of the back-door guards who would be on alert since they had been here only nights ago—the very night he had met Cinderella in the garden.

      Drawing back the curtain, Heath spotted the bent figure of a woman clearly weeping while she made her way to the back door of Slademore House. She appeared to be carrying a bundle close to her chest.

      Creed must have noticed her, too, for the carriage slowed down.

      Heath snatched up a pewter-tipped cane. The thing was a weapon as much as a prop. While the carriage creaked along, he jumped out on the side facing away from the guards.

      With his shoulders hunched, he limped along the cobblestones, his head dipping toward the ground to hide his mask. He hoped he appeared to be no more threatening than a drunk having trouble maneuvering his way.

      He intercepted the woman when she was but thirty feet from the guards.

      One of them glanced up; the other yawned.

      Heath made a tripping motion and pretended to catch his balance on the lady. He slipped an arm under the baby.

      “Come with me,” he whispered.

      “You’re him—the Abductor!” She opened her mouth to scream but Heath covered it with his palm.

      “It’s him!” called the guard just finishing his yawn. He jerked his coat aside and withdrew a pistol.

      Heath yanked the baby away from the woman, believing she would follow.

      She did, screeching and yanking on the end of the blanket. He snagged her elbow with his free arm and dragged her toward the moving coach.

      “Your cousin, Betty, sent me.” The familiar name silenced her scream.

      A shot rang out. He heard the bullet hit a stone on the street. Because of the fog it was hard to tell how close the pursuing footsteps were. Close enough to raise the hairs on his arms, though.

      “Get inside!”

      Thankfully she made the leap. He handed the infant to her on the run and then dragged himself in after her.

      He heard the whip crack over the horse’s ears, felt the lurch of the carriage when the animals jolted into a gallop. Wood splintered when a bullet connected with the back corner of the carriage.

      It took three blocks for his heartbeat and his breathing to slow enough to reassure the trembling woman that he was not kidnapping her but taking her and her infant to safety.

      Half a mile away from the town house, Creed slowed down to let him out. The coachman continued at a slow, leisurely-looking pace, bearing his charges toward the seashore and the haven of Rock Rose Cottage.

      * * *

      How could she possibly?

      And yet here she sat on the balcony overlooking the very lovely gardens of Fencroft House with the dratted notebook in her lap.

      Her brain nearly ached with the studying she had been doing. If it had not been for pleasant memories of a darkly handsome man flitting through her brain at odd times, she would be completely addle-brained by now.

      Where had he come from—where had he gone to?

      Sheaves of paper fluttered on her lap. The afternoon breeze lifted the scent of roses from below. She shook her head. It didn’t matter about the man.

      She was not intended for him, knew nothing about him. For all that she stared down at the fountain she was not likely to see him again.

      Glancing back at the notebook, she frowned, wanting to rip the pages to shreds and rain them down on the garden.

      She felt part saint for going along with Grandfather’s machinations, also part pawn, and completely a fool.

      If she felt a fool to herself she would appear thrice so to others. She was a foreigner to the ways of the British aristocracy in every way she could be.

      “Correct forms of address,” her grandfather had written in the bold script he always used.

      She had read it so many times that the paper was limp. How did Londoners keep everyone straight? Perhaps one had to be born to it.

      If she closed her eyes and thought hard she recalled that she would address the earl as Lord Fencroft, but only for the first meeting. After that she would call him “my lord” or, perhaps in time, Fencroft.

      But under the stress of a face-to-face