An Earl Out of Time (Time Into Time)

‘Um…’ Her brow furrowed with the effort of recollection. ‘My darling Bella… It is impossible, he is never going to agree… No, it was consent. That’s it. Your brother is never going to consent. If you love me, flee with me, come to Scotland where we can be married. Or did he say wed? Anyway, same thing.’ She was gaining confidence now, pleased to be remembering so much.

I rewarded her with a nod and a slight smile. ‘Go on.’

She brightened a little at the encouragement and sat up straighter. ‘Meet me tomorrow night at one of the clock outside the back gate. Bring nothing with you. If you trust your maid, then have her close the gate after us and tell her to take laudanum so she may seem to be drugged and escape blame. He’s ever so nice, that Sir Clement, thinking to put me out of the way of trouble, don’t you think?’

‘He is indeed,’ I said, wondering what Lucian was going to do to him to get him to confess what he had done with Arabella. Had Sir Clement set the footpads on Lucian, sent that coach to kill us today? If he had, then I was going to take a swing at him myself. ‘Did he ask for a message in return?’

‘Yes, Miss. I was to carry a note out to the Square in the morning, early, and the same boy would take it from me. So went and the boy was there. Then that night we let ourselves out of the garden door at a quarter to one and unbarred the back gate and we waited and a man came to the end of the alleyway with a lantern and we walked down and there was a carriage. The groom got up on the box and the door opened and a man held out his hand and in she got and I handed up the valise to the groom and ran back and barred the gate and locked the garden door.

‘I locked the bedchamber door, because Miss Trenton said it would make a mystery which might confuse things, then I drank the milk that she’d got from the tea table earlier. She’d put the drops in, quite a few, she said, so I would look properly drowsy when they found me. We’d still got them from when she had the toothache last month. So I did what she said and the next thing I knew there was this crashing noise and shouting and there was such a to-do.’

Either the girl was a world-class actress or this was the truth. The first time I had spoken to her I had felt that something wasn’t right, even though I had no idea what. Now I was convinced this was the true story.

‘Will you have to tell his lordship what I did?’ Martha was wringing her hands again, her eyes wide and anxious. ‘He’ll throw me out without a character.’ Then she bit her lip. ‘Not that I dare go back anyway. Oh, Miss, what am I going to do?’

I supposed we should hand her to the Bow Street Runners. She certainly wasn’t safe in that house if someone could get in so easily, or could bribe a servant to attempt murder. We could tell Lord Cottingham – the very fact that he was hoping for his sister’s return and reassuring her maid seemed to demonstra

te his innocence…

Instinct made me shake my head. ‘No. We won’t tell anyone, not yet, anyway. I believe you thought you were helping your mistress and not doing harm. But if harm has befallen her, I cannot promise to shield you. And do not even think about running away – you would make yourself look even more guilty if something is wrong. And they will find you.’ Goodness knows how, if she vanished into the teeming slums, but the threat seemed to work.

‘Oh, thank you, Miss. I’ll do what you say, I promise.’ She burst into tears and I found her another handkerchief and sat her down and patted her hand until she stopped sniffing.

She managed a damp smile, so I jerked my head towards the door and the two men followed me out. ‘Where can we hide her?’ I asked.

‘My sister in Greenwich,’ Garrick suggested. ‘My nephew’s in Town, my lord, called in just before Martha arrived. Jane sent him up yesterday to pay some bills and he dropped by to see how I was before he went back. He’s in the kitchen now.’

‘Yes,’ Lucian agreed. He was grim-faced. ‘Are you sure we can get her out unseen?’

‘He can bring the cart round. It’ll be full of parcels and tools and the Lord knows what else. He can haul her out like a roll of carpet and put her in the back until he’s well clear of Town. Sensible lad, he is, our Fred.’

That sounded perfect, but I could hardly concentrate on Garrick’s plotting and Lucian’s terse comments. My mind was spinning. Who? And why? And, rather more to the point, what now? Sir Clement, obviously, but how to tackle him?

‘I’ll leave you to it, Garrick, provided you do not think your sister will be put in any danger by this,’ Lucian was saying when I pulled my attention back to the two of them.

‘I’ll send a letter with them,’ Garrick said. ‘My brother in law’s a blacksmith, you might recall, my lord. Big chap and handy with his fists. He wouldn’t let anything happen to any of them.’

‘I am going out.’ Lucian picked up a hat and cane from the hall stand and went to the front door.

I ran after him. ‘You can’t go out like that – you look as though you’ve been rolling around in the road in Pall Mall.’

‘This cannot wait.’ He strode out.

‘Oh, bother the man.’ I ran to my bedroom, found an unbattered hat, pulled new gloves on over my scraped hands and hurried after him, buttoning my pelisse as I went.

I caught up with Lucian in Piccadilly. ‘I have no idea what – ’

‘Return home, Cassie. I am going to kill him,’ Lucian said, cutting across me.

It was so out of character for him to be rude, let alone to a woman, that I just gawped at him.

‘I will take him apart,’ Lucian swore.

I took a couple of skipping steps to catch up. ‘Where are we going?’

For answer he stepped into the road and gestured at a hackney carriage. ‘If you must come, get in.’ He opened the door, pushed me inside and snapped an address at the driver.

‘To Sir Clement?’