Cyrus interrupted the coachman. “You intended to stop the carriage?”
That’s what he’d said on the first telling of the story. Cyrus’s levels of suspicion and mistrust were so acute that he was ready to string the lad up and beat the truth out of him if even one detail differed from before.
The coachman nodded. “Unfortunately, I lost it in the maze of streets in Billingsgate. I secured the coach and then went by foot, but could find no trace of the carriage I’d seen. However, there was a mighty commotion down there by the dockside. Navy men and soldiers were everywhere, so I followed them to see what it was about.”
“You say they were after the captain of a merchant ship?”
The coachman nodded. He clung tightly to the hat he held in his hands as if it were a shield and he would be safe behind it. “I asked one of them, who said it was a ship by the name of the Libertas. But he knew nothing of a young lady who might be lost down there. In the chaos there seemed no hope of anyone having caught sight of her, alone or otherwise.”
Cyrus frowned. Alone or otherwise. Why would she be down there alone? Did Margaret have a secret rendezvous? He could scarcely believe it. No, that could not be the case. He gave her no time in which to nurture friendships that were not conducted under his watchful eye.
The coachman rattled on. “But I wended my way through the place, looking for her, and I was about to give up when I thought I saw her crossing onto a ship, with a man close behind her.”
Cyrus ground his teeth. The darkest question of all reared its ugly head again. Had she run into the night to a secret friend? Or worse still, a lover? The raw anger he felt doubled in response to that thought. For years he had nurtured that girl. She is mine and mine alone.
“I will return to Billingsgate,” the coachman offered, glancing at the doorway, eager to be on his way.
“No.” Cyrus glared at him. “I will send others. Men who are more adept at seeking out information.”
The man lowered his gaze to the floor. “Forgive me, sire. I know that my task was to watch over Miss Margaret when you were not doing so yourself. If you forgive me for saying so—” he dared to lift his gaze, cautiously “—it was as if she slipped away into the night.”
Cyrus lifted his brows in query. He was starting to detest the sight of this inept young man, a worker whom he’d been assured was reliable and astute when he was hired as third coachman to the household the year before.
The man stumbled on. “Perhaps Miss Margaret did not want to go to the theater.”
Cyrus gave a harsh laugh.
The coachman recoiled, his hands tightening on the brim of his hat.
“If Miss Margaret had not wanted to attend the theater she was at liberty to say so. I am not a tyrant.”
The coachman gave him a wary stare.
Cyrus twitched. “Did she give you any reason to suspect she might run away tonight, or at any other time during your employment here?”
The coachman shook his head.
“She has never slipped away from you before?”
Again he shook his head. Then he frowned. “She went for a walk earlier today. I heard of her intention and readied the carriage, but she insisted she needed no companion other than her lady’s maid.”
Cyrus lit upon that. Mayhap he would have more success gaining information from the maid. This dolt appeared useless. He wanted to dismiss him immediately and have him thrown into the gutter, but he could not rule out the possibility that the young man might as yet furnish them with something useful. It was necessary to get someone else to deal with it, however. The urge to make the young man suffer some part of what he himself was feeling was growing too great.
Cyrus snatched the man’s hat from his grasp and threw it aside, then pointed at a nearby chair, into which the coachman slumped.
Standing over him, Cyrus forbade the man to move. “Miss Margaret is the most valuable thing in my life,” he said, lowering his voice in an effort to convey the importance of his comment. “You will stay here and be prepared to repeat the details of your sorry story to anyone who enters this room tonight. There may be many, for I intend to hire all the best men I can find. I will raze London to the ground to find her if I have to, and you might hold the only information that can stop that from happening.”
The coachman looked suitably rooted to the spot.
Cyrus headed for the door. As he approached, it sprang open and the housekeeper entered.
“Master Lafayette, it is Mistress Beth. I fear she is near the end.”
Cyrus grimaced. He had nothing left to say to Beth, who had been near her end for days now. He nodded briefly. “Make her as comfortable as you can. I have other matters to attend to.”
The housekeep
er looked at him in dismay, disapproval flickering at the back of her eyes. “Begging your pardon, sire, but she is scarcely breathing.”