"Gi' us a shillin', guv." Edward stepped back as the fetid stench of stale gin exuded from a toothless cavern. The claw reached out and seized his ankle. Edward kicked out, fighting a moment of panic as he felt himself unbalanced, with only one free leg and one arm. If he went down to these slimy cobbles, he'd have the devil's own job to get to his feet again, and he couldn't afford to draw the attention of Neil Gerard or his henchman.
The fingers slipped from him, and with another foul curse, the shape huddled into its sacking again, lifting the stone jar to its mouth.
The man carrying Theo had disappeared through the now open door, and Gerard was following. Edward turned and ran back to his curricle. The lad greeted him with a grin of relief, took his shilling, touched his cap, heaved his basket of bread onto his head again, and went off whistling.
Edward sat for a moment fighting with himself. His blood ran hot with rage, urging him to burst into that house and wrest Theo from her captors. But he knew he was no match for one man, let alone Gerard and that massive ruffian, even if Theo were conscious and able to help. He had to get help.
He turned the curricle with a skill born of desperation and drove as fast as he would have done with two good arms along Fleet Street and the Strand. He had no idea where he would find Stoneridge, and beneath this urgent need lurked the terror of what they were doing to Theo at the moment. What if they moved her while he was away? If they got back to that house in Hall Court and found it deserted? The thought of the vast maze of London streets hammered in his fevered brain. She could vanish into that maw without a trace.
He made a tight turn onto Haymarket, shaving the varnish of a landau and hearing the indignant bellow of the coachman and the squeals of the vehicle's female occupants. His horses tossed their heads, sensing that the hand on the reins wasn't really steady enough for this pace, and he forced himself to pull back on the reins a little. And then he saw Jonathan Lacey on the other side of the street, strolling casually in the sunshine.
Edward hailed him but without immediate result. He drew rein and bellowed again in an agony of urgency. He couldn't drive across the stream of oncoming traffic Jonathan would have to come to him. But still Clarissa's swain continued to stroll on, his head presumably full of idyllic settings for his sugary portraits, Edward thought viciously. Standing up, he yelled with the full force of his lungs. The other man stopped, looking around him in puzzlement.
"Jonathan!" Edward's voice was hoarse as he waved frantically, finally catching the artist's eye.
Jonathan waved back with an amiable smile and looked for a minute as if, greeting made, he were about to continue his walk. Edward beckoned furiously, and finally Jonathan got the message. He stood on the pavement looking both ways, waiting an eternity for an ambling tilbury to pass, before he crossed.
"Good morning, Fairfax." He greeted Edward, looking somewhat puzzled at the imperative summons.
"I need you to find Stoneridge and give him a message," Edward said without preamble. "Immediately, Jonathan."
"Find Stoneridge?" The young man blinked. "But where would I find him?"
"I don't know." Edward struggled to hang on to his patience. "If he's not at Curzon Street and Foster doesn't know, try his clubs, or Mantons, or Gentleman Jackson's. Someone will know where he is."
"He was at Brook Street earlier," Jonathan said vaguely. "But he left before I did."
"Then that's not much help, is it? Now, listen, when you find him, tell him to meet me at Hall Court, off Ludgate Hill. Tell him it's of the utmost urgency and he must come prepared."
"Prepared for what?" Jonathan blinked again.
"He'll know what I mean," Edward said. "Now, don't delay. Can you remember the address?"
"Hall Court, off Ludgate Hill," Jonathan said promptly. "But this is most inconvenient, Edward. I have an engagement with a lady from whom I have every expectation of securing a commission."
Edward's mouth tightened, and the other man quailed at the look that sprang into the usually benign eyes. "If you're intending to marry Clarissa, Lacey, you'll have to learn the cardinal Belmont rule – we help each other before we help ourselves," he declared with ice-tipped clarity. "Now, find Stoneridge!"
Without waiting to see how Jonathan responded to this ferocious command, he backed his horses into an alley and turned back the way he'd come, driving his horses through the crowds as heedlessly as before.
Jonathan lifted the curly brim of his tall beaver hat and scratched his head. Then he shrugged and set off toward Mayfair. St. James's was as good a place as any to begin his search.
He drew a blank at Brooks's and Watier's, but the footman at White's acknowledged that Lord Stoneridge might be on the premises. He left Jonathan kicking his heels in the hall and sailed up the gilded staircase to the coffee room.
Stoneridge looked up from his conversation with Major Fortescue as the footman coughed at his elbow. "Well?"
"There's a young gentleman inquiring after you, my lord. Should I deny you?"
"That rather depends on the identity of the young gentleman." Sylvester raised an eyebrow.
The footman extended the silver tray with a card. "Now what the devil does young Lacey want with me?" Sylvester said, frowning. "You'd better send him up."
Jonathan appeared in the doorway a minute later. He stood looking round with every appearance of fascination, then flushed slightly as several gentlemen raised eye glasses and stared fixedly at the inquisitive intruder in this exclusive salon. He made his way hastily across the room, tripping over a small spindle-legged table in his embarrassment, righting it swiftly, only to catch his toe in the fringe of a Turkey carpet.
"It is something of an obstacle course, I agree," Stoneridge observed. "Pray sit down, Mr. Lacey, before the obstacles get the better of you."
"Your pardon, Lord Stoneridge." Jonathan mopped his brow with a large checkered handkerchief. "But I have been looking all over for you."
The first faint prickles of unease crept over Sylvester's scalp. "I'm flattered," he said calmly.
"Fairfax sent me with a message. A matter of the utmost urgency. I'm not at all sure what it could mean."
The prickles ran rampant up and down his spine. "It's to be hoped I shall. Pray continue."
"He wishes you to meet him at Hall Court, off Ludgate Hill – I believe that's correct. Oh, and he said to come prepared. He said you would know what that meant."
"Indeed, I do." Sylvester rose, no sign on his face of his inner turmoil. "Obliged to you, Lacey." He nodded briefly. "You'll pardon me, Peter."
"Of course. Anything I can do?"
But the offer was made to the earl's back as he strode from the salon.
What the hell trouble was Theo in now? He couldn't begin to imagine, and speculation was terrifyingly futile. His unease that morning had obviously been justified.
Concentrating only on immediate plans, he strode back to Curzon Street, where he thrust a pair of dueling pistols into his belt, dropped a small silver-mounted pistol into his pocket, tucked his sword stick under his arm, and slipped a wicked stiletto-bladed knife into his boot. Edward had said to come prepared.
He would make faster time on horseback, and within ten minutes he was galloping Zeus toward the Strand.
Theo swam upward through a murky pond where weeds snatched at moments of lucidity and waves kept tumbling her back into the dark world below. But slowly, her mind cleared and her eyes opened. Her head was pounding as if half a dozen hammers were at work, and gingerly she turned sideways on the pillow, feeling at the back of her head for the source of the hammers. Her fingers encountered a lump the size of a gull's