The Greatest Challenge of Them All Read online

  Drake scanned the façades ahead. There were others walking in the lane, some couples, mostly men striding along. All exuded the air of people knowing where they were going; by walking relatively purposefully, he endeavored to make Louisa and himself likewise appear to have a known destination in mind.

  He finally saw it. “Ahead on the right,” he murmured and from the corner of his eye saw Louisa raise her head and look.

  After a moment, she softly said, “The door between the bakery and the stationer’s shop?”

  “That would be my guess. Let’s see.”

  They angled across the lane. On closer inspection, the number sixteen was carved into the stone lintel above the black-painted wooden door.

  Drake tried the door and found it unlocked. “Interesting.” He let the door swing inward and stepped over the threshold. A yard ahead, a set of stairs led upward into relative darkness; very faint light shone down from a skylight in the ceiling above the upper landing. He reached back, grasped Louisa’s hand, and quietly ordered, “Stay close and shut the door.”

  He moved forward and waited while she stepped into the hall and closed the door behind her. Gloom engulfed them. He let several seconds tick past to allow their eyes to adjust, then he started up the stairs.

  She had to manage her full skirts; her foot slipped once, but he held her steady.

  They finally gained the small landing. A single door was set in the wall to the left. Chilburn’s lodgings occupied the rooms above the stationer’s shop.

  Drake released Louisa’s hand. Expecting to need his lock picks, he reached into his pocket as he closed his other hand about the doorknob, only to feel the knob turn freely. “Ah.” He paused, then murmured, “I suspect someone else has been before us.”

  He twisted the knob and sent the door swinging wide. With one hand, he held it back while he scanned the room beyond.

  All remained silent and still. There was no light burning; there was no one there.

  Easing out the breath he’d instinctively held, he walked into the room. The curtains were open, and sufficient light seeped in to allow them to see the furniture. He looked to his left and saw a sconce on the wall; he walked across, turned up the gas, and lit the flame. As it steadied, he replaced the glass, turned, glanced swiftly around, and grimaced. “Someone has searched the place.”

  Louisa halted beside him, scanning the room, noting the papers left scattered on the central table and a writing desk, the disarranged cushions on the simple sofa. “Who? And what were they looking for?”

  “Given his family doesn’t yet know Chilburn’s dead, I think we can assume that the search was ordered or done by whoever he was working for or with. Possibly the man who killed Connell Boyne, but there might be others acting for the mastermind as well.”

  “Hmm. Are we also to assume that they took away anything incriminating and that there’s no point us searching as there’ll be nothing left to find?”

  Drake stepped back and closed the door, then walked to an old-fashioned escritoire set against the wall a few feet from the door. The front of the escritoire was down, forming a desk that was covered in a welter of papers. “No. We still search. You would be amazed at what people trying to hide their tracks leave behind.” Another sconce was set on the wall above the escritoire; he lit that as well, casting light throughout the room.

  Louisa moved past him, deeper into the room. She went to first one, then the other of the two open doorways that led to adjoining rooms. “As there’s no one here…where’s Lawton’s man? What was his name? Badger?”

  Drake drew out the chair before the escritoire. “I have no idea.” He sat and started sorting the piles of disarranged papers. “See if you can find any clues.”

  Louisa humphed. She debated, then approached the rickety circular table that stood a yard or so in front of the battered sideboard that ran along the main room’s rear wall. The sideboard’s drawers were half out, and the doors of its cupboards were open; like the desk, it appeared to have been thoroughly searched. She gathered the papers scattered haphazardly over the table’s surface, then swiftly flicked through them. “Nothing but playbills and notices of events—no letters or personal communications.”

  Drake grunted. After a second, he added, “These appear to be primarily vowels or bills, with the odd letter or note thrown in.”

  He continued to work his way through the bundles he’d assembled on the desk.

  She studied him, then left the table and its uninteresting offerings and walked into the larger of the two other rooms. The bed, chest of drawers, and a rod across one corner from which hung several coats confirmed that this was Lawton’s bedchamber. It, too, had been ransacked. Regardless, she dutifully searched, including checking all the coat pockets, feeling under the papers used to line the drawers, and lifting the horsehair mattress enough to peer beneath.

  She emerged into the main room, shaking her head. “Nothing in there.” She walked into the other, smaller room. It was little more than an airless closet containing a narrow truckle bed; pushed into one corner and running along one wall, the bed took up most of the space. Unlike the main room and Lawton’s bedroom, this room appeared untouched. That might have been because there was nowhere to hide anything—no chest, not even a small side table. A shelf crossed the wall above the head of the bed; a single glance over the items ranged upon it was enough to establish that there were no papers of any sort hidden there.

  She ran her hands over the thin blanket neatly stretched over the bed, picked up the pillow and shook it, but heard no crackling, then lifted the mattress, yet as she’d expected, there was nothing to be found.

  “Huh.” She returned to the main room.

  Drake had divided the papers he’d found into three piles. He looked up as she neared. “Nothing?”

  When she shook her head, he handed her one of the piles. “These are his unpaid bills—see if there’s anything that stands out. I’ve gone through his letters—all are from his siblings and contain nothing relevant to the plot. These”—he waved at the pile he was still working through—“are demands and vowels. He seems to have owed a lot of people money, and he made a lot of promises.”

  Louisa took the stack of bills. She drew a straight-backed chair to the circular table, sat, and started working through the pile.

  By “search,” she had thought they would be opening drawers, poking into cupboards, and looking for concealed hiding places. Pausing in her task, she raised her head and scanned the room once more. Other than the sideboard and the desk, there wasn’t any of the usual furniture that had drawers, and there were no other cupboards. Just tables and chairs, and all the cushions had been disarranged.

  You would be amazed at what people trying to hide their tracks leave behind.

  She turned in the chair and looked at the small room—the closet in which Lawton’s man had slept. “That’s Badger’s room, that’s his bed, and his brush and comb are still there. There’s a perfectly wearable suit hanging on the back of the door.” She turned back and met Drake’s eyes. “So where is Badger?”

  Drake held her gaze for an instant, then looked down at the papers through which he was rifling. “Once he realized Lawton wasn’t coming back, then given the creditors who, judging by these demands, were guaranteed to come knocking, if there’d been anything worth taking, if he had any sense at all, Badger would have taken it in lieu of his wages and gone.”

  “Without his brush, his comb, and his extra suit?”

  When Drake only grimaced and continued working through his pile, she looked around the room again. “Perhaps it was Badger who searched?” She glanced at Drake.

  Without looking up, he shook his head. “Badger would have known where everything of value was kept—he wouldn’t have had to turn the place upside down.”

  “So someone else came here and searched. Was that before or after Badger left?”

  Finally, Drake met her gaze, and this time, his expression was grim. “That, indeed, i
s the question, and your observations make it unlikely that Badger left of his own accord. However, there’s no sign of a struggle, so I suspect Badger went out, expecting to return, but either changed his mind and fled or he was waylaid somewhere and never made it back here. Then later, someone searched.”

  “You think they—the others in the plot—have killed Badger.” She didn’t make it a question.

  Nevertheless, Drake nodded. “They’ve killed everyone else who might conceivably know anything. Now Lawton’s gone, they have no need of Badger. It’s possible he realized that and fled before they found him, but I think it’s certain his name is on our garrotter’s list.”

  “Hmm.” She returned to the bills she was supposed to be checking—to what purpose, she wasn’t sure. But when she reached the bottom of the pile, she frowned. Quickly, she flicked through the stack again, then set it down and looked at Drake. “There’s no bill from any landlord here. Have you seen any accounting or an invoice?”

  Drake glanced at her. “No. Nothing about rent.”

  She tapped a nail on the table. “I can’t see Lawton owning this place, so I wonder if that means the landlord lives near—for instance, downstairs.”

  His expression arrested, Drake met her gaze. “That’s…very likely.” He set down the pile of papers he’d been leafing through. “Beyond that, there’s nothing in these papers that hints at anything other than that Chilburn’s pockets were perennially to let.”

  “Perhaps the landlord might have noticed something.”

  Drake got to his feet. “Someone living close with an interest in what goes on here, in who comes and goes, might well have noticed something. However, it’s already long past midnight—we aren’t going to get cooperation from any landlord by waking him at this hour. I’ll send Finnegan to ask around tomorrow…well, later today.”

  She rose and handed back the stack of bills.

  Drake took them and set them on the desk, then reached up, turned off the lamp, and waved her to the door.

  She passed through it and waited as he turned off the second lamp, then joined her on the ill-lit landing, drawing the door closed behind him.

  Realizing the dimness made it impossible to see his eyes, she led the way down the stairs and out of the door into the lane. There, she paused. Once he’d joined her and shut the black-painted door, she bluntly asked, “What are you planning on doing today?”

  Drake met her eyes and lied. “Thinking things through and making plans.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him, her expression eloquently conveying dismissive disbelief.

  Ignoring that, he took her elbow. “Come on. There’s nothing more we can learn here—we need to be gone.”

  CHAPTER 12

  L ouisa sat in the darkened carriage as it bowled toward Mayfair, rolling freely now the traffic had eased, and pondered the state of her personal campaign.

  Her goal was straightforward: To discover what the seething attraction between them sprang from, what it truly presaged.

  The propinquity of the past thirty hours spent together focused on a common cause was, she judged, producing the anticipated results and escalating awareness, at least on her part.

  Her nerves and all her senses seemed significantly more attuned to the reality of Drake, sitting beside her only inches away on the carriage’s well-padded seat. The warmth radiating from his muscled body, the aura of reined power, and the physical intensity she’d always associated with him all impinged on her mind, while the subtle scent of his cologne wafted like a miasma tempting enough to addle her brain.

  After that all-but-phantom kiss the previous night, that ever-present awareness had deepened and broadened; that part of her mind engrossed with him seemed to have expanded and grown.

  And if she was truthful, beneath her calm serenity, her outward control, a sense of hunger had bloomed.

  Yet she had no idea if he had been similarly affected by their interactions over the past two days. She had no way of telling.

  A situation that, she decided, left her in a state of ignorance she couldn’t afford to allow to continue.

  When the horses turned into Grosvenor Square and slowed, Drake stirred. The instant the carriage halted outside St. Ives House, he reached for the handle, opened the door, and stepped out.

  Swift glances left and right confirmed that no one was presently on that stretch of pavement. He turned and held out his hand to assist Louisa down.

  She shuffled forward and paused in the doorway. With her skirts gathered in both hands, she looked down—at the edge of the step. At where the tips of her slippers should have been visible. “Damn!” she muttered.

  Then she tipped and pitched forward.

  Instinctively, he reached for her, to catch her before she fell.

  Only to have her straighten and land breast to chest against him, fully within his arms.

  Before he’d done more than register that—before his mind shook free of the physical shock of her slender, supple, subtly curvaceous, and far-too-alluring form plastered against him from shoulders to thighs—she’d reached up with both hands, framed his face, and pressed her lips, not in the least bit tentatively, to his.

  His traitorous arms locked about her.

  His traitorous lips responded to her challenge.

  His traitorous tongue—

  The instant she parted her lips, whether by his design or hers he hadn’t the slightest clue or the slightest desire to know, he plunged into the heated haven of her surrendered mouth and claimed.

  Took, sought, and with a hunger he couldn’t rein in, couldn’t tame—couldn’t, it seemed, any longer restrain—he devoured and savored.

  And she did the same.

  She met him and matched him breath for breath, heartbeat for heartbeat, in a giddily escalating exchange.

  Louisa clung and gloried—and did her level best to spin the engagement out. She reveled in the flagrant passion that laced each and every touch, each and every hungry caress—heated, blatant, powerfully inciting.

  Evocative. Her whole being responded to the burgeoning flame, to the desire that sprang to life and the elemental hunger that prowled behind.

  His lips and hers had all but melded. She no longer needed to frame his face. She slid her hands to his shoulders and gripped hard, fingertips sinking through layers of cloth to thrill at the tension investing the thick muscles there.

  He responded with a kiss so scalding it all but curled her toes.

  Emboldened and not to be outdone, she reached one hand to his nape, cupped it as she slid the fingers of her other hand into his thick dark hair and clutched, and held him to the kiss.

  Held herself to the searing heat of their shared passions and wallowed.

  Drake was mentally reeling. She wanted; he wanted. At this point, they should be looking for a bed.

  His whirling senses drew back enough to assess…

  Sheer shock gave him the strength to break from the kiss—to raise his head and drag his lips free of hers.

  He glanced around—as if he’d never seen Grosvenor Square before. Then he looked down at her—took in the glow, the incipiently radiant expression that, as she surfaced, was slowly infusing her features. “Good God!” The imprecation was all but breathless.

  She—the kiss—had dragged him under. So far under, he’d come up like a drowning man breaking the surface. He filled his lungs with much the same desperation and fought to steady his giddy head. “Damn it,” he muttered. “We’re in public.”

  He had to exert significant effort to force his arms to ease from about her, to release her—then he had to grip her waist to steady her.

  From beneath her long lashes, her eyes gleamed. Her gaze traveled his face, then her lids rose fully, and her lips curved in a smug, cat-who-had-found-the-cream-bowl smile. “I’ll bear that in mind next time.”

  The sultry words made his libido leap, made his cock, already iron hard, throb. He wanted to glare, but his features were not yet responding.

&
nbsp; She grinned, then swiftly stretched up and touched her lips to his again.

  With a muttered oath, he set her away from him and released her. Compressing his lips to a thin line, curtly, he waved her to the steps to her parents’ front door.

  Her lips still curved, her eyes dancing with entirely unsuppressed amusement, she consented to swing around, walk across the pavement, and mount the steps.

  He trailed her as far as the bottom of the steps, ignoring the carriage—one of her family’s town carriages driven by her coachman and with her groom up behind—as it rattled off to the mews.

  On reaching the door, she turned her head and, over her shoulder, regarded him.

  In triumph.

  He narrowed his eyes at her. Through gritted teeth, he muttered, “You should be whipped.”

  She laughed, sultry and low, then she opened the door. As she walked inside, she had the temerity to call, “Goodnight.”

  He spun on his heel and stalked along the pavement. Reaching the steps to Wolverstone House, he all but snarled, “Good night? Huh!”

  He leapt up the steps, opened the front door, and managed—just—not to slam it behind him.

  CHAPTER 13

  Step by quick, silent step, Griswade slid through the thick early-morning fog that blanketed the south bank of the Thames. His quarry lay ahead, walking purposefully through the maze of lanes that filled the blocks adjacent to the riverbank.

  Griswade had disposed of one man already that morning—the third of Lawton’s helpers. Luck had been on his side; the spot in which he’d chosen to lurk, entirely concealed by the helpful pea-souper, had turned out to be close to the man’s house. Silent as a ghost, he’d trailed the man as he’d headed for his workplace.