Deirdre found herself stumbling along strange corridors that never seemed to end but only met other crossing corridors, all lined with doors. She knew that hell had fire and brimstone, but she thought purgatory must he like this, endless corridors of misery, with no exit, and nowhere to go if you could find a way out. Tears pricked at the back of her eyes like a hundred sharp pins, but pride held them in. Another corner loomed ahead, and she hastened toward it.
As she rounded the bend, she recognized the jacketless man advancing toward her as Belami and stopped in her tracks for an instant. When she recovered her wits, she turned and fled back the way she had come.
Belami didn’t bother calling. He just ran after her and had soon overtaken her. She felt his strong hands on her shoulders, stopping her, turning her roughly around to face him. Incredible though it was, he looked angry. She had thought he would be humble, imploring, apologizing, but he glared at her as though he hated her.
It was his unfortunate custom to shout when he was wrong and knew he was wrong. “You couldn’t trust me, could you?” he shouted now in a voice that could be heard through every door in the corridor.
“Trust you!” she said in a slightly lower voice. “I’d as soon trust Jack Ketch with a rope! You’d best go in search of your jacket, Belami. That cough you’ve been practicing all week will catch up with you. You’ve been planning this for days. Don’t deny it!”
“I’m not denying anything,” he said proudly. “You know my work takes precedence.”
“Yes, especially when it involves such dashers as Lady Gilham! I don’t see you working so hard on the more important case, however! The prince may set a crown on Smythe’s head tomorrow for all you care.”
“That would please your aunt!” he said swiftly.
“You leave my aunt out of this. This has nothing to do with her! You’re the one who was caught red-handed. Nothing you can say will convince me this night’s work was necessary. If this is the nature of your work, then I want nothing to do with it or with you.” She lifted her chin and glared at him.
He knew her pride, and her intransigence, and began trying to calm her. “Deirdre, I can explain everything.”
“Not to my satisfaction,” she said, unmoved.
“Réal is at her house this minute, stealing the letters. I had to bring her here,” he said, reaching to put his hands on her upper arms in a rather tentative way.
“Did you have to take her dress off?” she asked, but she allowed the hands to remain on her arms, where they soon began moving carefully around to her back. She was weakening. He knew she was caving in and pulled her into his arms while he had the chance. His lips came down on hers, hot, hard, insistent and much too soon. She struggled to escape, but the harder she pushed, the harder he held her, forcing her to comply, confident that his masterly kisses would have the desired effect. He felt the fight go out of her, sensed a great wave of relief when her lips stirred and she put her arms around him.
I can’t lose him. I can’t! Her blood warmed as his lips pressed on hers and his hands stroked her back. But just two minutes ago he was doing this with her! She pushed him off with a sob. “You’re a devil!” she said, her voice a hoarse whisper. “A devil, and I hate you.”
“Darling, you know perfectly well you love me,” he said with his reckless, confident smile in place as he pulled her back to him.
And it was true. She did love him. In frustration, she raised her open hand and struck him across the lips, a hard, stinging slap. While be blinked in astonishment, she gathered up her skirts and fled. Ran and ran and ran till she saw the open door with her aunt framed within, lifting the champagne glass.
“Ah, there you are. It is high time we were leaving,” the duchess said. “Mrs. Fitzherbert would never stay at this bordello. Come along, Mr. Pilgrim. Belami will see that his lightskirt gets home, I daresay,” she added as she hauled herself up from the table.
Chapter Thirteen
“What did I tell you?” the duchess crowed as the carriage sped back to her hired cottage through the night. “A confirmed rake. A lecher. Leaving the Royal Pavilion for a rendezvous with a lightskirt. You described Lady Gilham very inaccurately, Deirdre. Ladylike, you called her, and pretty. She is a hoyden, but deuced attractive. I hope this opens your eyes to Belami’s true nature, my girl. I don’t know whatever possessed me to give the match my approval.” All these thoughts whirled around in her mind, which was giddy from having to drink up the half bottle of champagne so quickly.
“It ain’t what you think at all,” Pronto defended weakly, aiming his pleas at Deirdre.
“My niece has no thoughts on the matter,” the duchess told him comprehensively.
Deirdre’s febrile, glittering eyes refuted this statement, but in the darkness of the carriage she remained silent and still, save for an occasional shiver. How could he? She had known from the first time she had laid eyes on Lady Gilham she would be trouble, and she had been right.
Dick must have been seeing her regularly, all the time he let on that he wasn’t or that it was only business. The affair hadn’t leapt from “business” to what she had seen without some working up to it. Stolen kisses in the lady’s saloon, secret visits clandestinely arranged when Mrs. Morton was away. It was a betrayal, a planned, thought-out treachery. No wonder he put up no fuss when the duchess removed them from his house. It suited him right down to his heels.
The drive seemed endless. Her jaws ached from holding back the tears. She entered the house without even saying good night to Pronto, but the duchess more than made up for her silence.
“We owe you an eternal debt of gratitude, Mr. Pilgrim. If you hadn’t taken us to the inn, my niece might have made the dreadful error of marrying that creature. Buck up, Deirdre. There are better fish in the sea than that tiger shark. I’ll find you another match, never fear. You may call on us tomorrow morning, Mr. Pilgrim,” she informed him with grand condescension.
“Don’t know that I will,” he muttered unhappily.
“Rubbish! Of course you will. Meanwhile you ought to dart around to the other local inns and see if Mrs. Fitzherbert is putting up somewhere else.”
Pronto left, but he didn’t bother going to any other inns. He went straight to Belami’s house and stabled his rig to await his friend’s arrival. He was shaking like a blancmange and made a deal with God that if Belami didn’t kill him, he’d swear off trying to steal Deirdre from him. He was surprised to see Réal sitting in the box of the traveling carriage with a pistol cocked and aiming straight at him. He naturally assumed he was there at Dick’s orders for the purpose of putting a bullet through himself.
That evening had held many surprises, the greatest of which was that Pronto discovered he wasn’t a coward at all, as he’d always thought. A magnificent calm descended on him as he peered through the shadows at the muzzle of that pistol, knowing a flash of fire would soon issue from it to terminate his mortal existence. He was half relieved, as it would obviate having to face Dick. “Tell him I’m sorry,” he called in a firm, loud voice.
“
Comment
?” Réal called, setting down the pistol.
Pronto realized he had misconstrued the situation, but no wonderful wave of relief washed over him. “Belami ain’t back?” he asked.
“
Non, monsieur
.”
“Whole world’s gone mad tonight,” he mumbled, and went in the back door, through the kitchen, and up to the saloon, where he felt justified in resorting to the brandy bottle. He also took a poker and concealed it cunningly beside his chair, for in the aftermath of his brush with death, he realized he wasn’t quite ready to quit this world or even to be knocked senseless. Dick had a wicked left.
It was less than half an hour later when Belami entered the saloon. The dejected droop of his head was a reassuring sign. Dick never used his nabs when he was in this mood.
“Suppose you’re wondering why I took the ladies to the inn,” he said apologetically.
“No, I’ve figured it out from the things the innkeeper said. Someone told you or the duchess that Mrs. Fitzherbert was there?”
“That’s dashed clever deducing, Dick,” Pronto complimented, knowing his friend’s love of praise for his work.
“And of course she wasn’t, so that means it was a deliberate ruse to lure the ladies to the inn and catch me with Gilham.”
“Who’d do such a wicked thing?” Pronto demanded, astonished.
“No one knew but you, Gilham, McMahon, and my servants. Of that lot, I’d have to select…”
“On my word of honor, it wasn’t me, Dick. I’ve given up all thought of Deirdre.”
A weak smile showed on Belami’s face. “No, it was Gilham herself. She set me up, Pronto. I never felt such an egregious ass in my life.”
“Buck up. At least you snaffled the letters and loot from her house. She’s outsmarted herself this time,” he pointed out.
With an embarrassed shake of his head, Belami enlightened him. “No, she outsmarted me entirely. I just had a look at what Réal brought back from her house. Ordinary, cheap crockery and tin tableware—in the darkness he couldn’t distinguish what it was. It was exactly where she formerly had the prince’s stuff. As for the letters...” He held out a handful of papers, comprised of bills from milliners and butchers and his own note to her. “Here I thought I was clever. She’s been a jump ahead of me all the way. She knew exactly what I was up to and outwitted me, plain and simple.”
“But she’s only a woman!” Pronto said.
“No, she’s half fiend. I’ll get that she-devil if it costs me my soul,” he said, his dark eyes flashing with determination.
“Seemed to me you already got her. Certainly looked like it.’’
“A blow to my vanity as well. All her seducing was only to put me in a compromising position when the company arrived. Her swoons and shrieks were playacting. But why did you bring Charney, of all people?”
“Might as well try to stop the tide, Dick. Once she sets her cap for anything, there’s no holding her,” Pronto said, hiding his shame behind the brandy glass. He poured one for his friend, who gulped it and shook his head.
“I needed that,” Belami declared vehemently.
“Have another.”
“One’s enough. That stuff is slow death.”
“You ain’t in that big a hurry, are you?”
Belami pulled the cord to summon a servant and ordered coffee. “It’s going to be a late night, my friend. Will you stay and help me?”
“You can always count on me, Dick,” Pronto said humbly. He didn’t say a word when he received a scathing shot from the obsidian eyes of his host.
“What did Deirdre say?” Belami asked when the servant had left.
“Not a word. You’re off to a fine finish there, I fear. She just sat as if she was frozen stiff, except for shaking a little.”
This heartbreaking image burned itself into Belami’s brain. “I’d give every penny I own if I could undo this night’s work,” he said, his voice husky.
“Me, too,” Pronto seconded and applied himself again to his glass.
“Don’t overdo it. We’ll need all our wits to wiggle out of this one,” Dick said, removing the glass from Pronto’s hands.
“There’s such a thing as knowing when you’re licked, Dick. This is it.”
“I haven’t begun to fight yet.”
“Licked like a spoon,” Pronto said dolefully.
“Faint heart never won fair lady,” he replied, as some of his customary jauntiness seeped back to replace the drooping shoulders. The coffee soon arrived, and the gentlemen settled in to lay plans.
“Looks pretty demmed hopeless to me,” Pronto began. “Gilham knows you’re after the goods, and she’s hidden them. You’ll never find them. Could be anywhere.”
“They’re not in China or Peru. She plans to sell the letters to the papers and must have them close by.”
“We’ll go over the town with a fine-tooth nail. And comb,” he added when Dick looked at him askance.
“I’ve had her place watched. She doesn’t have many callers, but a tall, elderly, unidentified gentleman has been to see her two evenings, very late,” he said. “He comes in at the front door after looking around carefully. Réal followed him as far as the north edge of town, but didn’t want to leave the house long enough to follow him farther. Last night he took a large parcel away with him. I even knew that, Pronto, and didn’t put two and two together that it was the crockery. I never for a moment suspected that she suspected me. I only thought she was giving some old clothes away to the poor. My damnable conceit is to blame. I thought Mrs. Morton was the one the man was actually visiting.”
“Deirdre used to say
act
-ually. Remember, Dick, till you joked her out of it?”
“I remember,” he said with a wistful little smile, easily detoured to this subject.
“Mrs. Morton!” Pronto exclaimed suddenly, starting up from his chair. “I knew there was something I had to tell you. Not that it matters much, but old Lady Donwin remembered who stole Fitz’s ring. It was Moira Morton, a servant. She was blond and blue-eyed,” he added. “Deirdre thought you’d want to know.”
“Moira Morton,” Belami said, massaging his chin. “I wonder if Mrs. Morton’s name is Moira. It’s Lady Gilham’s Christian name—an odd coincidence.” This, of course, was entirely suspect and they discussed it for a few minutes.
“If old Mrs. Morton stole the ring, it’s more than coincidence,” Pronto said. “Have I got this all mixed up, Dick, or ain’t the ring involved in the George Smythe business? It ain’t Lady Gilham who’s mixed up with the ring affair. Is it?” he asked doubtfully.
A pleased smile creased Belami’s face. “It begins to seem that there are a few points of intersection between the two cases. I’ve figured out how Gilham knew the duchess had left my house—knew it before I did myself. Smythe was the only other person the duchess had told of it, barring leaving her card at the Royal Pavilion. Smythe hasn’t been to call on Gilham since Réal has been watching her, but he only started spying
after
that morning. The elderly man, whoever he is, could be the go-between, carrying messages and so on.”
“I don’t quite see what difference it makes if the two are in league,” Pronto said.