My Scandalous Viscount (22 page)

She wished this theory had never occurred to her.

She did not want to go. It was frightening. She did not want to lose her marriage.
But what if I’m right?

What if Beau and the rest of our men are being set up to be portrayed as criminals, and Nick is just to be used as an example?

That would be one way for their enemies to get rid of the Order.

Carissa stared unseeingly at the advertisement.

The private decision before her tied her stomach up in knots, especially now that she grasped the danger any mistake on her part could bring to all her friends—to say nothing of the destruction of her marriage.

But Sergeant Parker had said it all too well.

Order men don’t marry namby-pambies.

She saw she had no choice. She was not sure which was worse—if she turned out to be wrong or right. But either way, she had to know. The question was too dire to leave unanswered. If ever there was a time for a lady of information to save the day, that night had come.

You had better be right about this.

If she could succeed, maybe then Beau would forgive her.

“Time for bed, Tommy,” Mara told her son. “I mean it this time, you. Come along, say good night to your aunties.”

Thomas ran from Kate to Daphne, giving out hugs. He had only just met Carissa that day, however, so she had not yet earned one. But he must have decided he liked her, for he came over and offered her an alphabet block.

“Well, thank you,” she replied, summoning up a smile. She tapped him on his little nose. “Good night, Thomas,” she said, as Mara scooped him up and carried him off to his nurse.

“I think I shall retire, too,” Carissa spoke up. “It’s been a long day.” She bade her friends good night, then took a candle and calmly walked up to her chamber, already plotting her escape.

T
hat night back in London, Beau wandered restlessly from room to room. The house was much too empty with Carissa gone. Her absence left a gaping hole that he had not expected. Missing her with every nerve ending, he wasn’t quite sure what to do with himself.

He did his best not to think about her, but there was nothing else to occupy him, waiting for the gunsmith’s apprentice to return from making his rural delivery. Rather maddening, actually. He thought of writing her a letter to pass the time . . . but what was he to say?

He was still raw from fighting with her.

The automaton clock struck the hour of one. Beau leaned against the doorway in the dark and stared at it, wondering if he’d been too hard on her.

He knew she was only trying to help.

As the chimes ended, he leaned his back against the door frame, staring into space. The house seemed too big and hollow, and the thought of going to their bedroom alone made his chest ache vaguely.

He walked slowly into his office, poured himself a brandy, and sat down to drink it by the fire.

Just when he had started to settle his troubled mind, he heard an urgent knock at the front door.

He heard the night footman go and answer it. The door creaked. “Yes, can I help you?”

“Message for Lord Beauchamp!”

A courier.

Beau rose from his chair while the footman paid the messenger. When he stepped out into the entrance hall, his servant was just locking the door. Putting ceremony aside, Beau went and took the message from his footman rather than waiting for it to be brought to him.

He held it up to the candle; his face hardened as he recognized the hand.

He tore it open and read the letter from Rotherstone, his pulse pounding.
We have Drake. He’s not a traitor, he’s the bravest damned fool I’ve ever known. Wait till you hear what he did in Germany. We’ve landed at the coast and will be in London by tomorrow . . .

“Sir, is something wrong?”

Damn it, they were already in England! His warning had obviously come too late.

“Nothing. My greatcoat.” He went and got his weapons while the servant fetched his coat. “Listen to me very carefully,” he ordered as he pulled it on. “I’ve got to leave for a while. Don’t let anyone in while I’m gone, especially Mr. Green or anyone from the government.”

The young man’s eyes widened. “Yes, sir. Do you require assistance?”

“No. But thank you.” Beau paused in the doorway. “I am not sure when I will return, but I am expecting a certain caller tomorrow from Mr. Schweiber’s firm, Michael—the gunsmith’s apprentice. Do let him in. In fact, if I am not back yet when he comes, send him to me down by the river. I’m not sure exactly where I’ll be, but somewhere ’round the London docks. Tell him I said to come and find me. It is imperative that I speak to him. But don’t tell anyone else—anyone—where I’ve gone.”

“Yes, my lord.”

Then he marched out, his sole concern to reach Max and the others before Green’s soldiers did. He had to stop them from coming ashore, warn them at least to go to Scotland.

The Order’s abbey headquarters in the Highlands would be the safest place for them, at least until he had all this nonsense with the panel sorted. If they set foot on English soil, Ezra Green had promised what would happen.

They’d be walking right into a trap.

Chapter 23

T
he next morning, Carissa stood outside the odd establishment in Southwark, looking up dubiously at the sign.
THE GALA OF HISTORY—A WAXWORKS MUSEUM.

She could still barely believe, herself, that she had come. It seemed like madness by the sane light of morning. Why would the owner of a waxworks museum want to hire an assassin, after all? Nevertheless, here she was.

Too late to turn back now.

She just hoped Sergeant Parker and his men did not get in trouble for failing to prevent her escape.

It really wasn’t their fault. She had been as sneaky as she knew how last night. It had been difficult keeping her mouth shut—she had a feeling Kate probably would have loved to help—but she had not told the others where she was going.

She did not want her friends to be blamed for her decision if there were consequences. Nor did she think herself capable, frankly, of resisting all three of them together if they had opposed her plan, united.

So, resigned to go it alone, she had sought to buy herself more time, taking to bed as early as little Thomas had last night with complaints of the headache.

She had told Margaret to let her sleep in late the next morning, as she could use the rest after all of the strain of her tearful argument with Beau. She hoped the others would not be angry at her when they discovered her deception. It pained her to do it, but she had no choice.

Indeed, she was doing this for their own good and their husbands’.

When the house had gone silent, Carissa had risen from her bed and set out alone, creeping out exactly as Sergeant Parker had explained—a viscountess in disguise, sans jewelry. Dressed in a plain walking dress, sturdy half boots, a simple pelisse, and the most ordinary bonnet that she owned, she had walked through the dark woods to the coaching inn, where she had bought a ticket on the stagecoach back to Town. She had arrived within five hours.

It was only nine o’clock in the morning. She figured she had plenty of time to see the waxworks, then sneak back to the country estate the same way she had left, and wander back into the house in time for the midday meal.

She had already planned her excuse: that she had gone out on a long constitutional and had wandered off the property by accident. She had a book with her that she could claim she had sat down to read and dozed off.

Sergeant Parker might find her story odd, but he was tasked with keeping intruders out. The security he had put in place was not designed for locking his charges in.

At any rate, the moment of truth was at hand. She braced herself, opened the door, and went in.

As her eyes adjusted to the gloom inside a grubby receiving room, she recalled that many times, her cousins had wanted to come here, but Miss Trent, their governess, had said the place was vulgar. No doubt Miss Trent was right.

Morning sunlight coming through the dirty front window did no more than cast a rectangular glare of brightness on the floor. It could not touch the general heaviness of the place. An old woman greeted her, coming into the chamber with her broom.

“Are you open yet? I know it’s early—”

“Oh, yes, come in, dearie. I’ll never turn away a customer,” she added with a toothless grin.

“Thank you.” Carissa smiled back and went over to the desk to buy a ticket.

“Right through that door. Enjoy your visit!”

“Thank you.” Carissa took her ticket from the old woman and stepped through the doorway into a maze of dimly lit corridors housing the wax historical displays.

Spooky place,
she thought. It was clearly meant to inspire the visitor with tingling Gothic dread.

She saw the scenes Mara had mentioned . . . the Coliseum, with two rather mangy lions closing in on some early Christian martyrs. The animals looked like real ones that had been stuffed and mounted after being felled by some hunter’s rifle, but the human figures were of wax.

The Inquisition made her wince.

The Gala of History had certainly not spared on the fake blood. Some of the figures even moved stiffly with various tricks of marionette strings and clockwork mechanisms. She shook her head. It really was a marvel of the macabre. The accused witch in the Inquisition scene was so lifelike that Carissa stared, half expecting to see the figure breathing.

She moved on through the hush, still the only visitor, since the place had just opened for the day.

There was much more to see. Anne Boleyn and her executioner. In the next scene, King Charles I was also preparing to put his royal head down on the chopping block, surrounded by Cromwell and his unsmiling Roundheads.

Another tableau featured fearsome Mohican warriors from the American wilderness trading pelts for guns with British soldiers. The trees in the scene looked as solid as any in the woods she had hurried through last night.

Each wax figure was carefully painted, rendered in life size, exquisitely costumed. You could almost hear the birds in the trees chirping and the babble of the artificial brook that wound past their feet.

Honestly, this required real artistry, she mused. Perhaps the talent behind the scenes was someone who had built sets for the theater.

At last, she came to the scene that had been the whole object of her visit here today—the Paris mob scene that Mara had told her about, with the guillotine. She gulped slightly, staring at the gleaming blade.

Her gaze traveled over the elaborate tableau.
Lord, those really
are
lifelike heads.
She looked more closely at them.
Egads.
The gory spectacle was meant to shock and cause the viewer to look away, glossing over details. But when Carissa forced herself to look more closely, good heavens, she recognized some of the faces of people in Society! Aristocrats. Royals.
I could swear that one’s supposed to be Queen Charlotte . . .
and the Regent’s large head lying next to it in the basket.
How horrid!

How brazen.

It was hard to say for certain if she was right. But she had the queasy feeling she had stepped into someone’s twisted fantasy. All of a sudden, an invisible door painted into the background creaked open, and a thin, rather gangly man in black started to step out of the back wall.

“Oh! Beg your pardon, ma’am,” he mumbled, starting to withdraw. “I didn’t know anyone was here yet—”

“It’s all right!” She smiled, masking the flare of recognition in her mind.

He had a forgettable face, but it was absolutely he, the man she had seen that day at the bookshop. She was certain the second she saw him.

“I don’t mean to intrude. I was just going to fix something, make a little adjustment—I’ll do it later. I’m always fussing with them,” he admitted with a self-deprecating little laugh. “I won’t disturb you, Miss. Good day.” He started to retreat backwards through his hole in the wall.

“Oh—I say, are you the artist behind all these magnificent scenes?” she spoke up quickly, her heart pounding. She was startled by her own daring, but this was her chance to try to find out what she could.

She just prayed to God he did not recognize her, in return. She did not recall him looking at her that day.

He had paused. “Yes, I am. Why do you ask?”

“To offer you my compliments, sir. Your work is simply excellent!” she flattered him with a nervous smile.

“Why—you are too kind, ma’am. Thank you.” He hesitated, blushing like a schoolboy. “Do you really like them?”

“They’re incredible!” she exclaimed. “I’ve never seen anything like them!”

He stared, taken aback by her praise. “Thank you very much. W-we do try to give our visitors a unique experience.”

“Oh, it’s far more than that. It’s educational, as well,” she pointed out as she glanced at the angry mob figures. “You’ve truly re-created the spectacle of historical events. It gives such a greater impact to see it before one like this rather than simply reading about it in some dry old history book. Everything is so lifelike.” She shook her head, laying on the praise as her best hope of coaxing answers from him. “It really makes you feel like you’re actually there.”

He stammered incoherently, as though he had never received a compliment from a woman before in his life.

Carissa was astonished that this shy, soft-spoken, mild-mannered, little milquetoast of a man could be the force behind these wild, violent scenes.

But if he was, then he might well be the ‘disposable man’ that others had sent as their liaison to Madame Angelique.
Keep him talking.

She gave him her best smile. “Do you mind if I ask you a few questions about how you create all this? I’m the leader of a ladies book club, you see. I organize our events, and I was investigating your museum as a possible outing for our members.”

“Your ladies won’t find it all too frightful, I hope?”

“Oh, no,” she assured him, and he laughed nervously. “I have them reading Gothics.”

“Ah, Gothics. Well, I would be more than happy to answer any questions you and your ladies might have,” he said, as if he were the most agreeable person on the south bank of the Thames. Not the sort of chap who’d ever go in for hiring assassins. “We don’t get many visitors from the fashionable world,” he added with a probing glance that scared her half to death.

That Charles should’ve already realized she was highborn brought her attention back to the risk that she was taking with her own safety. His perception of her rank was too much already for him to know about her. Especially since hers was a level of Society that he clearly didn’t like.

Still, she held fast to her nerve, knowing that this would likely be her only chance to try to find out more information—details she could bring to Beau. She cast about for another useful question. “So, how do you choose your scenes?” she asked with a disarming smile.

He shrugged. “For their historical importance and the drama to be had from them, and of course, whatever might be entertaining to our guests. We survive by our ticket sales.”

“I see. And how on earth do you make your figures look so real? They seem almost alive.”

“Ah, that’s my secret! No, I’m only jesting,” he assured her with an awkward laugh. “I studied as a surgeon at the royal medical college,” he admitted, “but medicine was not for me. I had too much of the artist in my nature. But I did stay long enough for the anatomical studies.”

“I see. Then you have put your talents to good use.” She smiled cheerfully, but a chill ran down her spine, for she knew that the anatomical studies at the royal medical college were made on real corpses.

If milquetoast Charles had not been too squeamish to cut up dead people, then hiring an assassin ought to be a trifle for him.

It occurred to her presently that if he suspected the real reason she was asking all these questions, she could end up a corpse herself.

Groin, throat, eyes.
Plus, she had the pistol in her reticule.
Thank God for Sergeant Parker.

Glad that she had some defense, this did not change the fact that she was standing alone in a darkened space with a man who had once dissected dead bodies. A man who hired assassins and consorted with revolutionaries and Radicals. A man who probably thought that aristocratic heads belonged in baskets.

I want my husband.

Beau would throttle her if he knew the danger in which she had placed herself. Time to go.

Still smiling, she started backing oh-so-slowly away. “Well! This has been fascinating. My lady friends will love it.”

“May I assist you in making arrangements for your group’s visit, Miss—?” He walked through the mob scene and jumped up out of the dropped floor of it that allowed visitors to look down on the proceedings from a few feet above.

“Oh, yes, that would be most helpful. Do you have a card for your business so I know who I am speaking to?”

“Mother keeps them at the front desk. Have her check the book. I hope you will come back soon.”

“I’m sure I will. Again, wonderful work. I’ve really enjoyed it.” She kept walking backwards, past the Indians. King Charles seemed to eye her with a silent stare of baleful warning as she passed.

God, now this place had her well and truly spooked.

“I don’t mean to keep you from your work.”

“It’s all right. My friends will wait. They’re not going anywhere,” he jested, laughing, but she had a feeling he spoke in truth. Odd as he was, those waxen people might be the only friends he had.

A disposable man.
Someone that the people who sent him into the lion’s den didn’t care about. It had been fairly clear that day that Professor Culvert had wanted to brush him off and get rid of him as quickly as possible.

Oh, dear.
Perhaps she had flattered Charles too much, for he was altogether attentive and obliging, walking her all the way out to the receiving room and making sure the old woman there attended her at once.

“Mother! This lady wants to bring her group. Will you help her make the arrangements?”

“Oh, that’s very nice, dearie. I’m sure we’ll be glad to have you. How many?”

“Um, ten.”

“And when would you like to come?” the mother asked with a toothless smile.

Before Carissa could answer, the son chimed in: “If you know the date, I can make myself available to answer any questions your friends might have about my scenes. We could close for a couple of hours to all other visitors in order to accommodate your group.”

“How kind!” Carissa said, wincing with guilt at getting their hopes up. She felt strangely sorry for the odd pair. “I’m sure I would not wish to inconvenience you, or deny others the pleasures of your museum.”

“Not at all.”

“Did you have a date in mind, Miss?”

“You know,” she said, “I’ll have to discuss it first with my group. I want to make sure everyone is available, so none of them will miss it. If you would be so kind as to furnish me with your card, I will most certainly be in touch with you to schedule the date and time.”

“Excellent! Here you are, Miss.”

As the old woman handed it to her, Carissa quickly skimmed the card:
CHARLES VINCENT, THE GALA OF HISTORY.
Then she looked across the desk at them with a smile. “Thank you so much for your time. You’ll be hearing from me shortly.”
When my husband comes back to arrest you.
“Good day!”