To Distraction (Bastion Club 5)

“Well.” Astonished, she halted.

In the same instant she realized she wasn’t alone.

She sucked in a breath and whirled—

A black bag dropped over her head. Letting the ball go, hands rising to grasp the cloth, she dragged in a breath to scream.

A hard calloused hand caught each of hers.

She parted her lips—a band of material was cinched over her mouth. It was pulled tight and tied about her head; she only just managed to keep the band from pressing between her lips and pushing the cloth into her mouth.

For a moment, she was fully engrossed with that battle, then, as her senses snapped back to the outer world, she felt her arms being bound to her sides, then her hands were yanked forward and her wrists secured tightly before her. Before her head steadied she was lifted, carried between two men a short distance back along the lane, then loaded into a carriage, laid on the floor like a rolled-up rug.

The carriage door was shut on her; the carriage tipped as one of the men climbed up. “Shut the gate.”

The words were a deep, grumbling growl. A second later, she heard a muted thump as the gate closed.

Almost immediately the carriage tipped as the second man joined the first. The carriage jerked, rocked forward, then rumbled down the lane and out into the street.

From the opposite side of Park Street, along which he’d just happened to be strolling, yet another elegant gentleman out enjoying the pleasant afternoon, Malcolm watched the carriage bearing Miss Phoebe Malleson rattle down the street, then turn the corner and head deeper into Mayfair with an air of grim resignation.

He shook his head and strolled on. It was a stupid move, unnecessary—there were plenty of maids in Mayfair; it would have been easy to avoid whatever group Miss Malleson was a part of—and unacceptably dangerous.

The more he learned, the more he felt certain Henry’s reading of the situation was wildly fanciful. The other “gang” wasn’t in league with the white slavers, nor yet any other arm of the flesh trade—they were the wrong sort of people and there were no obvious connections. If left to his own much more cautious devices, Malcolm would have investigated the true nature of the other gang’s activities; given they, too, were operating if not outside the law then certainly on its fringes, and given that people of the caliber of Deverell and Miss Malleson were involved, there might well have been some nugget of information he could have exploited to nullify any threat the other gang might have posed.

But the ways of wisdom, of caution, had deserted Henry. Malcolm would have had to advance his case in highly forceful fashion to convince his guardian of the folly of his approach.

And that he hadn’t been prepared to do.

Arguing successfully with Henry—while he could certainly have done it—would have shattered his disguise. The veils he’d spent years artfully weaving would have fallen from Henry’s eyes, and then he would have known the truth—and if he then later fell, he would take Malcolm with him.

Malcolm had witnessed Henry’s vindictiveness too often to doubt it would—if given cause—be turned on him.

One of the hallmarks of the wise was that they avoided the pitfalls that ensnared lesser mortals. Malcolm had absolutely no intention of becoming ensnared in the web he had to this point managed for Henry.

Especially as it was Henry’s overweening arrogance that was set to bring the whole crashing down. “His territory” indeed!

Reaching Piccadilly, Malcolm crossed the street and strolled along the edge of Green Park. He paced along the pavement, swinging his cane, to all appearances a gentleman contemplating the beauties of the day.

Looking back on the last months, revisiting decisions in light of the looming debacle, there wasn’t, despite all, much else he could have done. Last December, with less than six months to go before Malcolm gained his majority and control of the fortune his father had bequeathed him, Henry—who as Malcolm’s guardian had complete control of that fortune until he came of age—had started toying with the funds, withdrawing small amounts here and there to feed his craving for acquiring pistols.

Malcolm had had to find an alternative source of cash sufficient to satisfy Henry

’s spiraling need, and quickly—that had been the only reason he’d mentioned the white slave traders and the possibility he’d seen there.

Henry, predictably, had leapt on the idea.

A product of Malcolm’s creative mind, the possibility, when he’d pursued it at Henry’s direction, had transformed into a lucrative reality. And so it had started, and so it continued, and Henry, now addicted, would never allow it to cease.

Until he was caught.

Whether in the absence of Henry’s need Malcolm would have developed his notion of assisting white slavers to the point of actually doing it, he honestly couldn’t say. He often thought of such schemes, but purely in a theoretical way; never before had he converted theory into practice.

Even now, even though it had been his concept and it had worked, although he was grateful for the experience he’d gained, he felt not the smallest ripple of regret at the notion that Henry would soon be caught and the white slaving scheme would end.

In three days, he would be free of Henry; a whole world of ways in which to make money was out there, and he intended to explore. Yet until then…

Increasingly certain Henry’s capture was in the wind—kidnapping the all-but-affianced bride of a man like Deverell seemed a certain way of bringing the full weight of the authorities down on one’s head—Malcolm paused at the corner of Arlington Street and considered the façade of Henry’s house.