Arnaud stopped and faced his surgeon with a frown. “I’m glad you find the humor in this situation. Now I have to figure out where in the name of all that’s holy that impossible woman would have gone.”
“We’ll start at Howick House.” Cullen clapped him on the back and shoved him onto the lighterman’s barge.
Sophie built a fire in her father’s ancient stove and boiled enough pots of water to fill her old hip tub still stored behind a screen in the kitchen. After her ordeal, all she could think about was ridding herself of the stench of the ship.
She’d sent a request to Mrs. Winters to collect her things through Lydia and have them sent to her father’s old townhouse on Edwardes Square in Kensington. She’d begged her to make Lydia promise not to reveal where she’d fled. She’d sent word to her uncle that she would forfeit her grandmother’s inheritance to him if he would desist plaguing her and all of those close to her, especially Arnaud.
And Sophie had finally received word from her father’s publisher the day before her ill-fated attempt to make her uncle see sense. In a reply nothing short of miraculous, he said he wanted her poems and memoir of Venice. The advance would see her through the end of the year. Maybe by that time, she could sell the novel she worked on now. Any excitement and celebration had had to wait until she emerged from her ordeal at the docks.
She’d found a leftover cake of the lavender soap she’d made before her father died and sank into the steaming waters with a hiss of gratitude. Her father’s gift shawl hung from a peg near the tub, in all its woolen paisley glory.
Sophie lifted the calf of one leg for a thorough sudsing and silently mused. She did not need her inheritance, she did not need a “gentleman of theton.” Nor did she need a maddening, proper Royal Navy officer dogging her every move. All she needed was the kindness of friends and her own tenacity. She would not give up on the life she wanted.
When Arnaud returned, his men had re-grouped at Howick House and were sharing the bits of information they’d each collected during the day. The street sweeps had revealed a large man, similar to the one described by both Teddy and Charles Lambert as the go-between, regularly disappeared inside a mansion on Piccadilly, the very one inhabited by Sophie’s uncle, the Duke of Wolford.
Bourne and Neville’s earlier attempts to get an audience with the man had failed miserably. His servants insisted he was no longer in town, but his men doubted that story, since the large traveling carriage remained in the carriage house, and servant gossip Bourne had gleaned from encounters with maids on shopping errands revealed the man was still hiding inside his house.
Cullen stood and stretched out his back, cartilage cracking. “Leave it to an Irishman to relieve a woman of all she knows and then some.”
Bourne lifted a fist toward Cullen in a mocking threat. “I would have made the ultimate sacrifice if necessary, Captain.”
Arnaud knew he was not joking. Many times in tight situations over the years, Lieutenant Bourne’s romantic bent had rewarded him with all kinds of vital wartime intelligence through flirtations in port cities. Nothing like an Irishman in uniform to loosen a woman’s tongue. He did not want to know what else his officer might have loosened in the pursuit of intelligence.
Marine Captain Neville, however, worried him. He was being unusually stoic and quiet while everyone was sharing what they’d discovered. “What’s wrong, Neville?”
“I may be seeing shadows where there are none, but something happened this afternoon that puzzled me.” Neville paused as if reluctant to continue.
“Go on, man. What happened? Anything you think might be important. Let me decide how it fits.” Arnaud shrugged his shoulders.
“It’s probably nothing, but this afternoon after we got back here, Lydia begged me to take her and her maid to see the actress, Mrs. Winters, who has rooms up on Jermyn Street. She asked me to stay outside, said they’d only be a few minutes.”
“So?” Arnaud asked. “She knows to ask for protection now that they’ve been through so much danger together.”
“It just didn’t feel right.” Neville ran his hands through his hair.
“How so?”
“She was as quiet as a mouse, and she carried a bag full of something.”
“And?”
“When she came back out, she didn’t have the bag.”
In that moment, Arnaud remembered the night in his room at the house party with everyone jammed inside. He remembered Sophie and Mrs. Winters with their beautiful heads bent toward each other. And he’d watched Mrs. Winters press something into Sophie’s hand.
Bourne lifted his head toward Neville. “She was quiet? How did that happen? What did you do to quiet her?”
Neville stood, a lethal smile on his face, and planted a smasher on Bourne’s face. “Bastard.”
Arnaud stood suddenly, unnerved by his men’s unexpected explosion of violence. “What is wrong with you two?”
Cullen, helpful as ever, filled him in. “Neville has a bad case of hopeless love for Lydia. Bourne has been making his life miserable over it, because he reckons Howick will have us all executed by a court-martial before this cursed shore duty is over. You haven’t been paying attention.”
Arnaud looked around the table. Neville looked away, Bourne ignored the punch and maintained his stubborn Irish stance, chin out. Artemis simply shrugged. Arnaud was in total defeat. Not only had he failed Sophie, but apparently, he’d failed to notice what was going on among his own men.
He shook his head hard. He knew he had to find her, and fast. He decided the most direct and dangerous route would be to face Howick. Whatever Mrs. Winters had given Sophie was a clue to where she hid. Howick would know, because Howick was closer to Mrs. Winters than anyone else. The look that passed between them that night in his room was unmistakable. They were in love.
The dowager marchioness intercepted Arnaud just as he was about to pound on the door to Lord Howick’s study. She carried a small candelabra and motioned for him to follow her to the family sitting room. Once inside, she placed the candles on a low table and turned to face him.
