The Last Hellion (Scoundrels 4)

And so she smiled, displaying an incomplete line of brown teeth. “Ainswood House is closed up and everyone’s gone,” she lied to her prisoners. “Looks like they’ve gone out hunting for you.” She shook her head. “A pair of runaways. Lucky for you I was the one who found you. There’s some as wouldn’t care if you was royalty. Finders keepers is some people’s motto. And do you know what some people does to little girls they find?”

The older one drew the smaller one closer. “Yes, we know. We’ve read about it in the Argus.”

“Then if you don’t want it to happen to you, I recommend you be good and quiet, and don’t give me no trouble.” She jerked her head toward the window. “You see where we are? It ain’t a elegant part of Town. All I got to do is open the door and say, ‘Anyone want a pair of pretty females?’—and you’re off my hands.”

“You don’t want Corrie to do that,” Nell said, leaning toward the girls. “Whatever you read about what happens to young gals ain’t the half of it. There’s some things so horrible as they won’t even print ’em in the Police Gazette.”

“I’ll take you where you’ll be safe,” Coralie said. “Long as you behave yourselves. And we’ll send word for ’em to come and fetch you. The quicker the better, I say. Gals who can’t earn their keep ain’t no good to me.”

Tom had managed to keep on their trail for a good while, for few vehicles, especially a broken-down coach, could move speedily through the crowded streets. But caught in a gnarl of foot and vehicular traffic, he’d lost them near the Tower and was unable to pick up the trail again, despite hours of searching.

It was late morning when he reported to Lydia. His description of the pair’s garb and sizes left no doubt it was Elizabeth and Emily. Lydia wished she’d had more doubt about its being Coralie who’d captured them, but there was no question of that. From Seven Dials to Stepney, there wasn’t a street arab who didn’t know the bawd—and who wasn’t wise enough to keep well away from her.

After sending Tom down to the kitchen to eat, Lydia dispatched a messenger to Ainswood, telling him to drop everything and make for London posthaste.

Then she led Tamsin and Bertie back into the library to formulate a plan of action.

Until now, they’d been as discreet as possible about the search, for a number of reasons. Gently bred misses who broke Society’s rules by running away would be assumed to break other rules in the course of their flight. Their reputations would be damaged, if not ruined, if word got out.

That, however, wasn’t the worst of risks. Grenville of the Argus had enemies. She hadn’t wanted her foes out looking for Elizabeth and Emily, and taking revenge on her via them. She’d made this clear to her spy network.

At present, unfortunately, Ainswood’s wards were already in enemy hands.

“We’ve no choice,” she told her companions. “We must post a large reward for their safe return and hope greed proves stronger than enmity.”

She and Tamsin quickly composed the notice, and Bertie took it to the Argus offices. By now, today’s issue of the magazine would be printed. If it wasn’t, Macgowan was to stop the presses and print the handbills instead.

While Bertie was gone, more messages went out, this time to Lydia’s private network of informants, seeking information regarding Coralie’s current hideout.

“Not that I expect much results from that,” she told Tamsin when the task was done. “The body of one of her girls was pulled from the river days ago. And that’s hardly the first time Coralie’s been wanted for questioning and managed not to be found. She knows they won’t spend long looking for her. The police—such as they are—are overburdened, their resources are limited, and there’s precious little financial incentive to find the murderer of one little whore.”

For income, Bow Street detectives, for instance, depended primarily upon reward money, public and private. The Crown wasn’t highly motivated to offer large rewards from public funds to solve such crimes as the murder of persons generally regarded as vermin. In such cases, private rewards were never offered.

“Wherever she does make her lair, it must be somewhere in London,” Tamsin said. “She has to keep an eye on her girls.”

“The trouble is, London is one of the easiest places in which to hide and not be found,” Lydia said. She summoned a servant and asked for her bonnet and spencer.

“You’re not going out?” Tamsin exclaimed. “You can’t be meaning to search for her singlehanded.”

“I’m going to Bow Street,” Lydia said. “We shan’t have any problem enlisting their help with this. But I want to speak to the officers as well as the hangers-on directly. They may be in possession of clues they don’t realize are clues.” She met Tamsin’s gaze. “Men don’t see the world as women do. Men don’t always see what’s right under their noses.”

Bess appeared with her mistress’s outdoor garments then. After donning them, Lydia turned to Tamsin.

“Coralie is not going to play fair,” she told the girl. “If she meant to, we would have had word from her by now.”

“A ransom note, you mean.”

Nodding, Lydia took out her pocket watch. “It’s past noon. She’s had Elizabeth and Emily since before daybreak. Why go to the bother of keeping them when she might simply bring them here directly, pretend she’d ‘rescued’ them, and demand a reward?” She put the watch away. “When she thought she might get in trouble, she was quick enough to pretend she’d ‘rescued’ you, recall. If she promptly delivered the girls, she knows I’d have no grounds for prosecuting her, and plenty of reason to express my gratitude in coin of the realm. That would be the practical approach. Since she isn’t practical, I don’t doubt there’s a grudge at work, and trouble in the making. I’m not going to sit here waiting for it—and giving her the upper hand—if I can help it.”

With that, and a promise to keep Tamsin informed of her whereabouts, Lydia departed for Bow Street.

Bertie Trent sat in the small office Miss Grenville had occupied at the Argus until her elevation to duchess. He was waiting for the handbills to be printed. While he waited, he was having an exceedingly unpleasant time of it with his conscience.

On the trip back to London, Tamsin had told him her story. Bertie didn’t blame her for running away. Her mother, clearly, wasn’t right in the head, and her father seemed to have a knack for making himself scarce, using business as an excuse. The man had as good as abandoned his daughter.

Likewise, there were a great many people—Lord and Lady Mars, for instance—who would think Ainswood had abandoned his wards.

But Bertie could see how a fellow could get mixed up when it came to family. Kin could drive a man mad. Bertie’s own sister had been an aggravation for as long as he could remember. Still, he would be wretched if anything happened to her.

In any case, women were often a problem, and when you didn’t know what to do with them, the simplest route was to ignore them, keep away, and avoid unpleasantness. That didn’t mean a fellow hadn’t any feelings.

Maybe Mr. Prideaux hadn’t realized how bad things were at home.

Whether he did or didn’t, Bertie couldn’t help thinking the man must be seeing clearer now. If, deep down, he loved his daughter, he must be worried to death.

After all, Bertie was worried to death about Ainswood’s wards, though he’d never clapped eyes on them. Even Dain was distraught. Bertie had never before heard him ramble on the way he’d done the day the news came. Or behave so strangely—actually packing Bertie’s clothes—Beelzebub, who constantly kept the servants hopping to his bidding.

Bertie hated to imagine the state Mr. Prideaux must be in, picturing every horrible thing that could happen to his daughter, supposedly en route to America with a man who could be a prime villain, for all he knew.

Bertie hated to imagine it, but he imagined it all the same, and with each passing hour, his conscience screamed sharper and louder.

He stared unhappily at the tidy desk, at the inkwell and pens, pencil

s, and paper.

He ought to ask Tamsin first, but she had enough on her mind, and he didn’t want her conscience ripping up at her as his was at him. Besides, if a fellow couldn’t trust his own conscience, Bertie told himself, who and what could he trust? There was right and there was wrong, and Conscience was pretty plain, at the moment, about what was what.

Bertie took out a clean sheet of paper, unscrewed the inkwell, and picked up a pen.

Hours after her departure from Ainswood House, Lydia stood looking at the corpse of an old woman. The remains lay in a cold chamber reserved for the purpose, in the yard of the Shadwell magistrate’s office.

One of the river-finders, whose profession it was to dredge the river for corpses, had recovered the body last night. Lydia had found out about it during her visit to Bow Street. The constable who’d collected it from the river-finder had noticed the distinctive marks on the corpse and asked for a Bow Street officer to come and compare them to the marks found on the young prostitute pulled from the river some days earlier.

The old woman’s face had been cut up in the same way. What was left of it, along with the deep wound in the throat—nearly decapitating her—offered clear evidence of the garrote.

“More of Coralie’s handiwork, do you think, Your Grace?” the young constable with her asked.

“Her handiwork, yes,” said Lydia. “But hardly her sort of victim. Hers are always young. Why should she attack a mad old woman?”

“Mad?” Constable Bell’s gaze moved from the corpse to Lydia. “What tells you the deceased was mad?”