Page 42 of A Silence in Belgrave Square (Below Stairs #8)

Adam’s plea alarmed me greatly, but I did not let myself simply race away after him. I went up to the street and signaled for my lads, then I made many preparations.

Only after that did I leave off my cap and apron, fetch my coat, and follow Adam, who was unashamedly terrified. I tried to make him explain clearly what had happened, but he only danced with impatience and raced off along Mount Street toward Park Lane.

When we reached Piccadilly, we turned west to Knightsbridge and south into Belgravia. We arrived in Belgrave Square to find that every front window in Viscount Peyton’s house was muffled, the knocker removed from the front door. All signs told us the house was deserted.

We made our way around to the back, entering an unnaturally quiet mews. No grooms moved about tending horses or repairing coaches or harnesses. Mr.Fielding’s man was nowhere in sight, and I wondered if Mr.Fielding had pulled him from his watch, assuming the danger was done.

The entire lane was eerily silent, the windows of Lord Peyton’s house once again blocked by heavy draperies. At the far end of the mews, where it dead-ended against homes in Upper Belgrave Street beyond, a man and dog sauntered into one of the carriage houses and vanished. No one else was there.

Adam and I ventured to the narrow, protected passageway that took us to the back door of number 38. The solid door rang with my knock, but as the seconds ticked by, no one answered.

“She might not be here,” Adam said worriedly.

I arrested my balled hand in the act of knocking again. “Then where? Did she accompany Lady Fontaine to wherever she is staying next?”

Adam shook his head. “When I came this morning, Mum was in front, arguing with the lady about something, and Mum shooed me away. When I came back later, this house was shut up, and no one would answer, no matter how much I banged.”

I listened in disquiet, then left the passageway for the mews again. There I studied the back walls of both Lord Peyton’s house and the one next door, where Lord Downes lived.

His house also contained a shielded passageway, which I plunged down without hesitation, pounding on the door at the end of it.

We waited a long time. I was beginning to believe this house deserted too, when the door was pulled open and a sullen kitchen maid looked out. Her sand-colored hair under its cap was wildly curly and also a bit greasy.

“What?” she asked without much interest.

“Is Lady Fontaine here?” I asked. “Come to visit, perhaps with her maid?”

The maid shrugged. “Dunno, do I?”

“Ask your housekeeper,” I commanded. “Or a footman. It’s important.”

“They ain’t here,” the kitchen maid announced.

She started to shut the door, but I put my foot into it. “What do you mean, they aren’t here? Where are they?”

“Well, I don’t know.” The maid regarded me with scorn from tired brown eyes. “The master sent them off. Cook said I had to stay and finish scrubbing the pots, which I am. Then I’m going.”

I went cold. “Why did your master send everyone away?”

The maid scowled at my persistence. “He wouldn’t be telling the likes of me, would he? Now clear off. I’m busy.”

She tried to close the door again, but I shoved it open. “Not until we find Lady Fontaine and her maid.”

I strode past her, Adam following without delay. The maid watched us, open-mouthed, but there wasn’t much she could do against our determination.

“You can’t just push in,” she shouted after us. “Anyone asks, it weren’t me that opened the door. I ain’t getting the sack.”

Her voice faded as I clattered down the short flight to the kitchen and servants’ area, all deserted, as the maid had claimed. Pots that definitely could use a bit of scrubbing lay near the sink in the scullery.

I easily navigated my way to the back stairs, as most London houses had similar layouts. I hastened up them and pushed open the green baize door at the top.

This house was identical to Lord Peyton’s, with a long staircase and a landing with a large window directly above me. Three doors lined the lower hall, which led to a fan-lighted front door.

All was silence.

I felt Adam’s warm body behind mine as he peered around me. Dust motes swam in the afternoon light from the landing’s window, but nothing else stirred.

I motioned to Adam to remain quiet, and we climbed the main stairs, taking care to not let our footsteps ring. Adam proved expert at moving noiselessly. He stayed close behind me, as though a plump London cook could protect him from all danger.

We reached the next floor, finding all quiet there as well. I was about to continue upward when I heard a muffled noise.

Adam darted around me and raced to the first door off the staircase. He opened it but obviously found nothing inside, because he backed out and ran to the second. He ducked inside this room and did not return.

I hurried to its door and peered in.

Hannah sat on a straight-backed chair in the very middle of an otherwise pretty sitting room. Her hands were bound behind her, her feet lashed to the bare legs of the chair, a cloth tied over her mouth. Her eyes, above the gag, held both relief and fury.

Adam already had a pocketknife out and was sawing through the thick ropes. They were tough and wiry, the kind a country steward might use to bind up a pole on a sagging fence.

As Adam kept cutting, I closed the door, moved quickly to Hannah, and eased the gag from her mouth. “My dear, what happened?”

Hannah wet her lips and swallowed, grimacing. “?’E’s lost ’is mind, that’s what ’appened.” Her voice was hoarse and dry. “Bleedin’ arse.” She still wore her black maid’s gown and pale muslin apron, but she’d dropped all pretense of prudishness.

“Lord Downes?” I asked.

“None other. He’s got Lady Fontaine upstairs. Heard ’em tramping over me. His tough put me in here when I tried to pull her out of this house.” Hannah’s expression held rage, disgust, and some fear. “What’s our Sean doing ’ere? This bloke’s dangerous.”

Adam didn’t answer. He kept his head down and continued working.

“He came to fetch me,” I told her. “Good job he did, eh? Adam—I mean, Sean—take your mum out when she’s free. I’ll find Lady Fontaine.”

“Not a bit of it.” Hannah kicked at the bonds Adam had loosened, managing to extract one foot. “You’re not going up there by yourself. I told you ’e’s a madman.”

“Did he murder Lord Peyton?” I asked.

“If he did, he did it without coming into the house,” Hannah said, sounding disappointed to admit this. “Everything was bolted up that night—I swear to it. I checked the doors every night before I let meself go to sleep.”

Adam cut through a cord that bound her hands, and Hannah flailed until she disentangled one wrist. She and I helped Adam loosen the other ropes, and between the three of us, she was soon free.

I caught Hannah when she stood up and half collapsed. “I’m all pins and needles,” she complained. “Damn the wretch.”

“It will wear off soon.” I held her until she nodded at me that she could stand.

There were welts around Hannah’s wrists, and her mouth was red where the gag had pressed. Adam regarded the signs of bondage with murder in his eyes.

“He’ll pay,” I assured the boy. “Why did he dismiss everyone?” I asked Hannah.

“So he could continue his heinous plan,” she answered grimly. “Why else?”

Once Hannah could walk without stumbling, I opened the door again and peeked out into the hall.

All was as quiet as before. I heard no one upstairs and wondered if Lord Downes had departed with Lady Fontaine. If so, where would he have taken her? And did she go with him willingly?

I led the way to the next flight of stairs, Adam aiding Hannah as the circulation returned to her legs and feet. I knew neither she nor Adam would sensibly flee back to their own home, wherever it might be, so I didn’t bother arguing with them.

We crept up the stairs, all three of us tense and listening, but we heard nothing.

The normal sounds of a house this size were absent, and I knew the maid spoke the truth when she said the entire staff had been sent away.

I wondered if Lord Downes realized the cook had instructed the kitchen maid to remain behind to finish the cleaning.

Hannah pointed to a door that led to the room directly above the chamber where she’d been imprisoned. I tiptoed to the entrance, put my ear to the door, and listened.

“When are we off to Paris?” Lady Fontaine’s voice came readily to me, but she sounded eager, not frightened. “I will have to shop quite a bit once we reach there. I’ll need new frocks, because the ones I have now aren’t good enough for Paris.”

“Soon,” a gravelly voice answered. I heard a click, as though someone consulted a pocket watch. “Once I know all has gone well.”

“You aren’t taking all that with us are you?” This question held a touch of nervousness. “I’m not certain they’d allow us on the train.”

“No,” the man barked. “It’s staying. To erase all my sins.”

I did not like the sound of that.

Nor was I certain a man who’d had Hannah tied and gagged, ordered the murder of a private secretary, and caused the death of Lord Peyton would tolerate Lady Fontaine’s prattling for long.

He’d leave her somewhere, or perhaps kill her along the way.

The train to Dover went through long stretches of countryside, with perfect places to roll a body out of a carriage in a lonely area.

“No, you don’t, you old bastard,” Hannah snarled under her breath.

I realized we’d not best Lord Downes by subterfuge. Direct action was needed. He was an elderly man, and I heard no one else in the room but Lady Fontaine. Any guard with them would make some sort of noise—loud breathing, clearing his throat, or asking for orders.

Despite his fondness for shotguns, I knew the elderly Lord Downes could not prevail against the three of us.

I thrust open the door, and we burst inside, only to halt in dismay.

Lady Fontaine glanced up from where she sat on a horsehair sofa, which was pulled against the back of a desk. We were in an office, with filled bookshelves, comfortable chairs, and a smattering of papers on the large desk.

Lord Downes, the bearded man I’d watched descend from his carriage yesterday, was indeed the only other person in the room. He was dressed in a dark suit and coat, of the sort one might wear for traveling. He held no shotgun, for which I was grateful.

What stopped us as we crossed the threshold was not a shotgun or a tough waiting to bully us away.

It was the piles of dark tubes of dynamite that were piled against the bookshelves on every wall, with another stacked under the window in the back of the room.

Lord Downes faced us. He held another stick of the deadly substance in one hand, a meerschaum pipe, lit and trickling smoke, in the other.