Sherbrooke Twins (Sherbrooke Brides 8)

He met for two hours with Lord Montague, managed to keep his attention focused long enough to get the marriage contract finalized, all the while thinking that at least there’d be laughter in his life. Corrie might drive him mad, make him want to hurl her through a window, but at the end of the day, she’d have him holding his belly with laughter. And kissing the backs of her knees. He grinned. Imagine, kissing the backs of the brat’s knees. Life, he thought, was amazing.

JASON AND PETER Marmot hadn’t found the man in Covent Garden that morning. One old woman, who was selling very well-made brooms, had said through healthy gums, “Old ’orace was lying on his arse today, the lazy sod, likely he was drinkin’ ’is guts out, and all because he’d heard that a man wanted to poke his sticker in ’orace’s belly.”

This didn’t sound good. They made plans to return that night. As it happened, however, Peter hadn’t appeared, and so Jason had gone alone to Covent Garden. He simply walked about, turning down a half dozen prostitutes, guarding his groats, looking at every shadow that crept out of the many alleyways, keeping his hand close to his stiletto and his derringer. It was raucous, as it always was this time of night, yells, laughter, curses. He tried to blend in, all the while looking everywhere for the man Peter had described to him.

He didn’t know what made him turn at the last moment, but thank the good Lord that he did. A man, masked, wearing a black greatcoat, came at him, not with a knife in his hand, but a blanket, and right behind him were two other fellows, both of them with blankets at the ready. Good God, was it Augie and his cohorts again, believing they would succeed at trying the same thing again?

With no hesitation at all, Jason drew his derringer and shot the man in the arm. He yelled, fell back. “Ye foul young sot! Ye shot me! Why’d ye do that? I niver hurt ye, not really, even that first time.”

Ah, so it was Augie and his crew, and he believed he was James. “Where is Georges Cadoudal?” Jason asked.

He kept his pistol pointed at the man in the greatcoat, who’d dropped the blanket to the ground and was holding his arm.

“I doesn’t know no Cadoudal fellow.”

“You’re Augie, aren’t you? And you two must be Billy and Ben. I trust you’re all feeling better than the last time I saw you.”

“No thanks to that little gal,” said Augie.

“Not much of a repertoire you fellows have. All you know is blankets?”

“Ain’t nothin’ wrong with a blanket or two. We doesn’t want to kill ye now, anymore than we did the first time. We jest wants to take ye fer a nice ride again, only ye goes and brings a gun wit’ ye. That jest ain’t fair.”

“Just like you did to my brother.”

“What brother? Ye is ye, ain’t that obvious? What’s this brother stuff?”

“You kidnapped my brother, Lord Hammersmith. I’m Jason Sherbrooke, we’re identical twins, you fool. So the man who hired you didn’t bother telling you that, did he? Not very competent of him. No, you two hold still.” To make sure they believed he was serious, Jason drew the stiletto from its sheath along his forearm. “Nice and sharp, a birthday present from my father; he eased it out of a thief’s sleeve in Spain. The first one of you who moves gets my stiletto right through the neck. Now, Augie, tell me. Did this so-called Douglas Sherbrooke hire you again?”

“I doesn’t know what yer talking about, young ’un! Aw, ye hurt me bad, ye hurt me real bad. I jest think I’ll send me two boys ’ere to pin back those ears of yers.”

“If you do, I will shoot you again, this time, in what you call a brain. So send them over here, come on, you puking cowards.”

But none of the three men moved an inch toward him. “Come on, Augie, tell me about Douglas Sherbrooke. He hired you again, didn’t he? He had you set up the pie man, hired him to start talking about Georges Cadoudal. So we’d hear about it and come. This Douglas Sherbrooke-is he young? Old? What does he look like?”

“I ain’t sayin’ nothin’, boyo.”

“All right, then. Augie, let’s see if you have any more to say when I take you to my brother and we both beat all the wages of sin out of that stupid head of yours. You will tell us what’s going on here.”

Suddenly, with a sharp whistle from Augie, the two men threw their blankets at him, then all of them simply faded back into that malodorous black alley.

Jason got the blankets sloughed off quickly, fired his second bullet, heard a yell. He listened, but couldn’t hear anything more now. He trotted to the head of the alley and stopped. He wasn’t about to go into that alley alone, he wasn’t that big a fool.

Well, damn. He’d not done well.

Where was the man who sold kidney pies? Old ’orace? But Jason knew even before he found the man’s body, one alley away, that they’d killed him before coming after him, cutting off a loose end. He turned to see Peter Marmot running up, late as usual, but with a smile so charming, you didn’t long want to punch him in the nose.

Peter stared down at the dead man, stabbed cleanly through the heart, and cursed.

Jason told him about the three villains. “They’re the same three men who kidnapped James. I’ll wager that this so-called Douglas Sherbrooke sent them after me, only they believed I was James. I didn’t manage to keep hold of them, damn me for an incompetent. This poor old fellow, they gave him a name to repeat until it came to our ears-Georges Cadoudal-then they killed him, because, I suppose, he could identify them.”

Peter said, “Let’s try to find some friends of the poor man, see if perhaps they know anything about Douglas Sherbrooke.”

Jason said slowly, “The fact is, Peter, this Douglas Sherbrooke knows all about Georges Cadoudal, knows that my father is worried about him, and thus it’s his name he uses to draw us out. He’s got to be Cadoudal’s son-but why is he after James in particular? Wouldn’t I do as well if his motive was simply to draw out our father?”

But they didn’t find anyone who would admit to knowing Horace until an urchin, with the help of a sovereign tossed to him from Jason, told them his name was Horace Blank, “ ’E made a fetching kidney pie, allus gave me one. I’ll miss old ’orace. ’E lived ov’r in Bear Alley, up on the third floor, right under the eaves.” And then he bit down on the sovereign, grinned as big as a full moon, and was gone.

They walked to Bear Alley, found Horace Blank’s small lodgings beneath the eaves, and trudged up the narrow dark stairs and went into Horace’s room. The small room was surprisingly clean, with a slatted bed, a small trunk at the bottom of it, and all