A brewer's dray lumbered into the road ahead of Edward's curricle, its four shires with braided manes planting their massive iron-shod hooves on the steeply rising road with noisy deliberation. Edward cursed. He still wasn't comfortable maneuvering his horses in a confined space one-handed. He was learning to hold the reins in his teeth while he directed with a flick of his whip, but it was tricky at best, and not something to be tried in a crowded thoroughfare when anything might spook one of his animals.
He was forced to hold back until the road widened a little and he was able to pull out and pass as they crossed Old Bailey. Only then did he see that the phaeton had disappeared. The dome of St Paul's Cathedral crowned the top of the hill up ahead, and there was no sign of Neil Gerard and his phaeton.
Edward's heart began to thump with uneasy premonition. Could they have turned down toward the river, retracing their steps to Blackfriar's Bridge? Theo had disappeared in the company of a man intent on murdering her husband. He swore as the bitter taste of his own futility washed through him anew. If he'd been able to pass the dray, he wouldn't have lost them. Why had he allowed Theo to coerce him into this? He'd known it was a mistake. He knew his limitations, but he just didn't want to accept them.
He glanced to his left into the dark shadows of a narrow court, and his heart jumped into his throat. The phaeton was drawn up before a door at the rear of the court. Instinctively, Edward drove past the entrance to the court, pulling into the side of the road a few yards up the hill.
"Hey, lad!" He beckoned an errand boy carrying a basket of loaves on his head. "Hold my horses for a couple of minutes. There's sixpence in it."
"But me loaves'll go cold, guv," the lad objected. "Master'll 'ave me 'ide if 'e gets complaints."
"Two minutes, and a shilling," Edward said brusquely, clambering down.
The lad deposited his fragrantly steaming basket on the pavement and gingerly took the reins. "Don't 'old with 'osses," he muttered. "They won't bite me, will they, guv?"
"No. Just stand still with them," Edward threw over his shoulder as he ran back to the entrance to the court Standing in the shadows, he stared into the gloomy, noisome three-sided space created by the backs of tall, narrow houses. The kennel running down the middle of the court overflowed with garbage, and the mired cobbles were thick with filthy straw.
The phaeton still stood at the door. Gerard and a massive man in a leather apron stood on the steps of the carriage, looking down into the interior.
Where the devil was Theo? Edward's heart was beating so hard, he could hear the blood roaring in his ears. The big man bent and hoisted something into his arms. Edward felt sick as he stared helplessly at the scene, recognizing the unresisting bundle the man threw over his shoulders.
What had they done to her? Why hadn't she used her pistol? He took a hasty step into the court and tripped over a bundle of sacking that cursed vilely. Looking down, he saw a pair of hollow, burning eyes glaring at him, filled with a malevolence that sent chills down his spine. A clawlike hand in fingerless mittens clutched a stone jar.
"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.