To Distraction (Bastion Club 5)

Late that morning in a town house in fashionable Arlington Street, just around the corner from St. James, Malcolm Sinclair paused outside his guardian’s study. After an instant’s hesitation, he raised a hand and knocked.

“Come in!” Henry barked from within.

Opening the door, Malcolm did as he was bid.

Henry sat behind his massive desk, papers spread before him. An imposing figure with steel gray hair, he was engaged in transcribing a judgment; a downward twitch of one corner of his thin lips was his only acknowledgment of Malcolm’s presence.

Unperturbed, Malcolm quietly shut the door and crossed the room on silent feet.

Henry glanced up from beneath beetling brows as Malcolm gracefully sat in the chair facing the desk. He scrutinized Malcolm’s impassive countenance, and as usual could read nothing in it. “Well?” he demanded, his brusque tone giving warning of his ire over having been disturbed.

Malcolm dutifully reported, “It appears we have a problem.”

Settling himself elegantly, he observed his guardian’s harsh-featured face and waited with his customary patience. Others sitting in that particular chair would have felt apprehension, certainly a degree of nervousness, but Malcolm had been Henry’s ward from the age of six; he’d grown accustomed to his guardian’s arrogant and contemptuous severity, inured to the effect of his unmitigatingly hard and ruthless presence.

While Henry believed his was the superior intellect, Malcolm knew better; he, however, saw no reason to corr

ect Henry’s mistake.

Henry humphed and returned to his writing.

The scritch-scratch of his pen continued, the dominant sound in the room. Malcolm let his gaze roam, taking in the gleam of wooden stocks, of finely wrought iron and steel, the glint of brass inlays, the sleek, destructive lengths of the numerous pistols mounted on the walls. Henry’s obsession with pistols—for obsession it truly was—never failed to amaze him, a curious insight into the incalculable folly of an otherwise careful man.

To Malcolm the assembled pistols, valuable antiques and rarities though they were, were merely guns, tools to be used if necessary but otherwise relatively uninteresting objects.

To Henry they were passion. And desire—definitely desire.

Indeed, his desire to acquire one of Napoleon’s personal pistols had reduced Henry’s funds to the almost embarrassing. And now with the final end of the war, there were pistols from defeated French marshals coming onto the market. Henry was eager and ever-greedy for funds.

He finally came to the end of his paragraph. He looked up to dip his nib in the inkpot. “What problem?” He didn’t bother looking at Malcolm.

“That sweet little governess we were to pick up from Chifley. She’s gone.”

Henry paused, then lowered his pen, and finally looked at Malcolm. “Gone?”

Malcolm toyed with the idea of making Henry repeat himself but decided against it. “Indeed. She ran away—or should that be escaped?—last night. According to Chifley it was organized—there were others, including guards, waiting in the alley to help her get away.”

Henry’s lip curled. “And you believed him? That posturing bantam can’t keep his pants buttoned. Are you sure he didn’t give her a poke and she fled into the night?”

Malcolm smiled thinly. “In the normal way of things, a likely possibility, I’ll allow. However, in this case, I’m inclined to believe him. Aside from his disgruntled manner—I’d swear the girl had eluded his manly embrace—he’s sporting a bruise on his jaw that certainly didn’t come from the door he told his mother he’d walked into.”

Frowning, Henry set down his pen. His expression darkened as he considered the possibilities, as Malcolm had already done. Pale eyes narrowing, Henry tapped a yellowed fingernail on the parchment before him, the final judgment on a man’s life, now forgotten. “That sounds like we have some other gang pursuing the same game as we—in our territory.”

Malcolm inclined his head. “There’s more. I’d heard rumors that female staff had gone missing while attending house parties with their mistresses. As that action wasn’t here, in Mayfair, it didn’t seem relevant, and indeed, the first two instances could have been mere coincidence. Now, however, another lady’s maid—Lady Moffat’s—has vanished from Cranbrook Manor. Together with this latest incident…” He gestured deferentially. “I think your deduction may well be correct.” He paused, then diffidently asked, “What are your orders?”

Henry’s eyes narrowed to shards of flint. “Find out more.” He paused, then his fist clenched and his voice took on a darker note. “If there’s a gang of interlopers operating around here, they’re poaching on our turf. Clearly we need to teach them a lesson. And exact retribution.”

Trust—it was all about trust. In wooing Phoebe, it was the most vital element he had to establish. And in that respect, Deverell felt he was progressing exceptionally well. All he had to do was capitalize on his success to date and further deepen her implicit trust in him.

His way forward was clear. Of necessity, women trusted the men they slept with; now Phoebe had allowed him into her bed, into her body, he’d cleared that hurdle and had gained that most fundamental of trusts, but it was unquestionably in his best interests to consolidate his position and allow that trust to deepen, as it naturally would over time, over more interludes.

Until eventually she was sufficiently enamored of him to happily entertain the notion of marriage.

He hadn’t lost sight of his ultimate goal, and now that she’d entrusted him with her secret life—her involvement with her agency—he had another facet of her trust to pursue.

Apropos of that, he presented himself at Edith’s town house at noon. The butler showed him into the morning room—the French door of which he’d locked on his way out seven hours before.

Phoebe was there, along with Edith. After exchanging greetings with her aunt, he turned to her. “I wondered if you’d care to take a drive in the park, Miss Malleson?” When she looked at him blankly, he added, “Or perhaps, as the day is so fine, we might venture a trifle further.”