Three Nights with a Scoundrel (Stud Club #3)

Both ladies blinked with surprise.

“I’m so sorry,” Lily said. “But come in, come in. I’ll explain.” She ushered her stunned friends through the door and shut it behind them. “Our husbands haven’t gone out for a leisurely ride. They’ve gone out to confront Leo’s killers.”

Amelia and Meredith looked to one another.

“You must believe me,” Lily said. “Julian left me a letter this morning.”

“We do believe you, dear.” Amelia put a hand on Lily’s arm. “We already knew.”

“You … You knew?”

Meredith nodded. “Our husbands told us. But Mr. Bellamy asked us not to say anything to you. I gather he didn’t want to raise your hopes or anxieties until it was all over.”

Lily went numb with anger and disbelief. She didn’t know what to think. Her husband, her friends, her friends’ husbands … Was the whole world conspiring to deceive her?

Amelia tightened her grip on Lily’s arm, guiding her into the drawing room and helping her into a chair.

Sitting down across from her, Amelia said, “There’s nothing to fear. Let me explain. Through the work of an investigator, Mr. Bellamy was able to find the two men believed to have attacked dear Leo. They’ve been imprisoned these six months for another crime, and they’re due to be released today. The men have gone to meet them, bring them to London, and swear out a new charge of murder. There is no danger, and it will all be over soon.”

“But … but that makes no sense.”

If there was no danger, why would Julian leave a letter saying he might not return? He said he’d received a threat on his life yesterday. Lily’s memory flashed back to that moment on the street, when she’d been shoved against the windowpane. Could that have been the incident? It would certainly explain Julian’s behavior of the subsequent half-hour, carrying her more than a mile home before collapsing with relief.

She reached for Amelia’s hand and clutched it tight. “I believe you, Amelia. I believe that as recently as yesterday, their plan was as you describe it. But something changed. That’s why Julian wrote me that letter. He spoke of not only confronting Leo’s killers, but identifying an unknown enemy. He spoke of violence, and the possibility he will not return. I believe our husbands may be in true peril. Or at the very least, mine is. We must do something. Do you have any idea where they’ve gone?”

Amelia and Meredith exchanged guarded looks.

“Lady Lily,” Meredith began, “I know you are anxious. But even if there is danger, our husbands are better equipped to handle it than most men.”

Lily ignored her. “If they went to meet prisoners being released … How many prisons are there? The Fleet? Newgate? Bridewell? And so many more, just in London alone. Oh, but a London jail makes no sense. Why would they ride out on horseback? It must be somewhere further away.”

Amelia touched her wrist, then waited for her attention. “Lily, my dear—”

Lily cut her off. “I know what you’re going to say, Amelia. That our husbands have the situation in hand, and we can only make a muddle of things by interfering. But I know you’re wrong. I can’t tell you how I know, but I know. Julian would not have left me that letter if there was no reason to fear.” She took a deep breath. “Now, the two of you can either help me find him … or you can leave, and I’ll do it myself.”

Meredith sighed. “Rhys gave me no details about their destination. He said only that they were riding into the country.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know any more than that,” Amelia said. “I confess, when Spencer’s talk turns to horses and riding, I don’t always listen so closely as I ought.”

“We need a list,” Lily said. “A list of prisons and jails within easy riding distance.”

“Even if we obtain such a list,” Amelia asked, “what will you do with it? We can’t possibly go searching in every direction at once.”

Lily dropped her gaze and blinked back the tears of frustration stinging her eyes. Crying wouldn’t help matters.

Her attention was jerked upward by a flurry of rainbow-hued feathers. Tartuffe swooped the length of the drawing room, circling back to perch on the chandelier.

“Damnable bird,” she cursed up at him. “How did you escape your cage?”

Amelia clapped with astonishment. “Is he yours?”

Lily nodded.

“He’s lovely,” said Meredith. “And he seems to share your distress over Mr. Bellamy’s fate. He keeps singing his name. ‘Oh, Julian,’ he says. Over and over. ‘Oh, Julian.’” She chuckled. “And now, ‘Guilty, guilty.’”

“He belonged to a barrister once,” Lily explained. “And yes, he has quite a fondness for Julian’s name.”

Something pecked at her memory. A line from Julian’s horrible, heartbreaking letter.

I’m a bastard, a scoundrel, and as you’ve said, an unmitigated ass. Even the damned bird knows it’s true.

Just what did this damned bird know about Julian? Guilty, guilty indeed.

“Don’t … you … move,” she warned the parrot, slowly backing away. Once she’d reached the room’s exit, she darted into the corridor and found two footmen standing there.

She snapped her fingers at the first. “You—bring quill and paper.” She swung her gaze on the second. “Run and ask Cook for a dish of minced fruit and nutmeats. And both of you, be quick.”

They dispersed as ordered, and Lily returned to the drawing room. It was a wild, likely futile idea, but it was the only idea she had.

“Amelia,” she said, retaking her seat and keeping her eyes trained on the feathered menace overhead, “I know you are a duchess, and this task is horribly beneath your station in life. But I must ask you to do it anyway.”

“Whatever can you mean?”

The footman arrived with paper and quill, and Lily waved him toward Amelia, saying, “I must ask you to take dictation from a bird.”

“What time are they set to be released?” Ashworth asked.

Extricating his boots from the squelching marsh, Julian climbed a small ridge and squinted toward the Thames. In the deep center of the river, the prison hulks floated at anchor—skeletal, rotting corpses of ships, stripped of masts and sails. Retired from their work as sailing vessels, now serving as overflow prisons for convicted felons.

“After the day’s work,” he answered. “This time of year, labor ends at four o’clock.”

“Odd, isn’t it?” Ashworth mused. “That they put convicts to work around all those weapons and guns?”

“I reckon the officers watch them close.”

Longboats ferried the prisoners back and forth from the shore, where they spent their days laboring in the Woolwich Warren, England’s largest armory. To the south of where they stood now, a large wall rose up from the marshland, enclosing the Warren—a maze of shipyards, weapon foundries, powder magazines, and more.

“Four o’clock?” Morland consulted his timepiece. “It’s not yet noon. We have plenty of time, then. Let’s take a meal at the inn beforehand.”

They’d ridden out from Town before dawn, tracing the Thames some distance on its journey toward the sea. Around daybreak, they’d come within sight of Woolwich and the fleet of hulks. They’d stabled the horses at a nearby inn and set out on foot to scout the area.

“Let’s go over the plan again,” Julian said.

“Again?” Ashworth groaned.

“It’s not as though it’s complicated,” the duke said. “We enter the Warren. Before the two brutes can be released, we’ll intervene. Explain matters to the officer, take them into our custody. We arrange for transport to Newgate, where I see them charged with murder. End of plan.”

“Wrong,” Julian said. “The plan has changed.”

“Oh, really?” Ashworth asked. “How so?”

“We have to enter the armory on false pretenses. Then let them be released. I’ll follow them for a bit before taking them into custody. My custody.” He opened a satchel at his side and removed a pistol, a horn of powder, and a pouch of lead shot.

“Your custody? At gunpoint? Why?”

“Because I need to know who hired them.”

In matter-of-fact terms, Julian told them about the shoving incident in the street yesterday, and the card pressed into his hand. He didn’t repeat the words of the message, only the gist.

“It was a warning,” he said. “‘Don’t interfere, or you’ll be silenced.’” He paused for a moment, concentrating as he measured black powder. “It’s just as I’ve always suspected. That attack on Leo and Faraday was meant for me. If these two brutes go to the gallows, I’ll never know who put them up to it. Lily will never be safe. My only chance is to capture them and force them to lead me to their employer.”

“And you propose to do that alone?” the duke asked.

“It’s kidnapping,” Julian said. “And torture, if they need some convincing to talk. I wouldn’t ask you to be a part of that.”

Ashworth said, “You’ve asked me to do worse.”

“That was in the past. You both have wives now, responsibilities. Morland here has a child on the way.”

Morland countered, “And what about you?”

A swift pang caught him in the chest. He ached for Lily. Would she be awake yet, he wondered? Was she already cursing his name, ruing the day they wed?

“Just leave,” Julian told the others, “I’ll go it alone.”

Ashworth and Morland exchanged glances. Neither man moved to depart.

“We’re not going to leave you alone, man.” The duke kicked at a loose stone. “We think too highly of your wife, for one.”

“And we both owe you our assistance,” Ashworth added.

Julian shook his head. “Forget the Stud Club. It was nothing more than a joke on Leo’s part. I only puffed up that honor and fraternity and ‘Code of Good Breeding’ nonsense to prod you into action when he died. Neither of you owes me anything.”

Ashworth snorted. “I owe you my life. Or don’t you remember?”

Julian tilted his head, considering. Well, he supposed there was that. He’d hauled Ashworth up from a cliff in Cornwall. At the time, however, the man hadn’t treated it like a favor.

The duke added, “And I seem to recall your assistance in a midnight search for my runaway ward.”

“That hardly counts. I didn’t want to help.”

“For God’s sake, you stood up for me at my wedding,” Ashworth said. “We’re friends, Bellamy. And you’re stuck with us, whatever fool plan you’ve cooked up.”

“But at least give us some explanation first,” Morland said. “Why the devil does someone want so badly to kill you?”

Julian hesitated, unsure whether to tell them. Were they friends, truly? He looked from the stern, aristocratic duke to the formidable, battle-scarred warrior. Well, he supposed, these were two men he would rather have as friends than enemies.

“I know things,” he said. “Things I was never meant to know. I overheard secrets as a youth, working at a coffeehouse. I was an errand boy. My mother worked in the kitchen.”

“And your father …?” Ashworth prompted.

“Not in the picture,” he said tightly. Julian couldn’t imagine that news would come as a shock to either man.

It didn’t.

Morland frowned. “What do you mean, ‘you know things’? Such as …?”

“Such as that horse you’re so fond of? Osiris? You know, the reason for this whole club?” At Morland’s nod, Julian continued, “I happen to know the first race he ever won was fixed.”