Font Size
Line Height

Page 14 of Brilliance and Betrayal (The Diamond of the Ton Regency Mysteries #1)

13

“Almost all our faults are more pardonable than the methods we resort to to hide them.”

—Francois Duc de La Rochefoucauld

H is driver, Will Hodges, had spoken truly on all counts. He hadn’t missed. The bullet had taken a brute square in the chest, leaving him motionless and bloody on the pavement. The rest were still approaching.

This was wrong.

An ordinary pack of highwaymen would have cut their losses already when they discovered their prey was armed and capable, not to mention that highwaymen rarely staged their attacks on a London bridge. These men were different, and Peregrine recognized their ilk—violent, expendable tools for hire. Men moving with the kind of confidence born from countless dirty jobs going unpunished.

While Hodges’s shot hadn’t frightened the others off, it had given them a moment’s pause. And then Peregrine’s armed exit gave them another.

Foolish of them to hesitate, really. Will Hodges was a seasoned veteran who only needed half a minute to reload both barrels of the flintlock carbine. It was a fact Peregrine knew intimately because they had both been infantrymen who survived the Nive.

On the banks of the Nive, they had stood in lines of two, and many of the men around Hodges and Peregrine had died, little rhyme or reason to survival. The only control over the future that a man could have was taking to heart the idea that every dead enemy soldier was one that couldn’t aim his musket your way. Speed and ruthlessness were the only facets they could control, and they leveraged them unstintingly.

That was one of the reasons they endured while so many soldiers broke—a certain, fatalistic camaraderie when faced with impossible odds. This, however, was not the Nive; here, three on two odds were laughable.

And these ruffians had no idea what manner of men they had cornered.

“Lock the carriage doors!” Peregrine said, raising his voice enough that the duchess would hear—and obey, hopefully. She had been so bloody pale, there was more than a small chance she had fainted dead away inside.

Hodges slid off the bench with the gun, staying on the far side of the carriage so that they each covered one entry. Once he finished reloading, Peregrine was certain that at least one more of these thugs would find himself a corpse.

One of their attackers began to circle in his driver’s direction, knife in hand. Peregrine paid that one no mind as Hodges could manage himself. It was the others who had decided to circle into the lee side of the carriage, out of Hodge’s line of fire, he needed to keep his attention on. They probably thought they’d overpower Peregrine quickly, flank his driver, and then have their merry way with the duchess and horses.

It was high time to stop acting like a gentleman.

Peregrine let confidence ooze from him, and he laughed with a low, mocking edge. “You should turn around.” He brandished his dagger in his right hand, point up. “It would be terrible to be sent home in more pieces than you arrived.”

The taller of the two laughed, a rough bark of a sound. “Brave talk for a man about to bleed.”

“Perhaps.” Peregrine held back and let them approach, welcoming the acrimony bubbling within him like a caldron of black, boiling tar waiting to be poured from the battlements. “But I warn you, it will not be my blood that stains this bridge.”

They were watching his dagger hand instead of his left, where he had palmed a large chunk of broken cobblestone he had picked up when he stepped down. And as they closed to a distance of maybe ten feet, Peregrine hurled it with all the strength of his left arm—right at the face of the large one.

The earth seemed to still, his blood singing with a rush of anticipation.

Now was a chance to release the violence that pooled just below the surface of his skin this past year, usually so carefully concealed beneath the polished veneer. To empty some of the endless well of wrath that churned within him, dark and bottomless.

Peregrine’s ears told him his aim had been true. The big one roared in pain and staggered back. Watching him from the corner of his eye, Peregrine spun to deal with the shorter man who was lunging at him, knife arcing towards his ribs.

Pivoting, he sidestepped the blade, letting his own slice neatly down the thug’s forearm. And then he kicked out with his boot, catching the man’s knee with brutal force. Shorty screamed as the bone cracked, and then he crumpled to the ground, writhing and clutching his leg.

In those few seconds, the tall one recovered enough to close with him, snarling, his knife slashing wildly and blood streaming down his cheek. Peregrine deflected the blow in a clash of steel. The force of it reverberated up his arm, but he held firm, gritting his teeth against the pain.

What is one more pain in your life, after all? His inner voice mocked.

Twisting, he drove his elbow into the man’s jaw, but not hard enough. His coat hindered him, and the thug recovered from the glancing blow quickly. Using the butt of his dagger like a hammer, the tall man landed a blow to Peregrine’s arm that made him drop his dagger, his hand nerveless. And then he grabbed Peregrine by the dangling edge of his cravat, yanking him into his arms.

In a grapple, Peregrine was outmatched. He had height, speed and stamina, but the softer life of the aristocracy did not lend itself overmuch to developing raw strength. He struggled in the grasp of the other man, his right arm pinned, trying to get an angle that would let him do enough damage with his left to get free.

“You think you’re a bloody hard case, do ya?” the man muttered in Peregrine’s ear.

“I do,” Peregrine grunted. “Certainly more than… you’re used to getting from a toff.”

The man laughed, and then he balled his fist, landing it into Peregrine’s stomach cruelly. All the air left his lungs in a rush, and the man let him collapse to the ground, wheezing, before planting his boot in Peregrine’s side. Suddenly, the flintlock cracked again, and Peregrine rolled out of the way of the collapsing thug, still struggling to regain his wind.

The driver’s steady steps approached as Peregrine flipped onto his stomach and slowly made his way to his feet. “You only had one man to deal with,” Peregrine groused, retrieving his dagger and brushing off his ruined clothing. “What were you doing, Will? Admiring the scenery?”

“Aye.” Of his own accord, Hodges was a man of few words and dry wit. “Reckoned you needed the exercise.”

Peregrine looked for the third fallen man for hire. “And where is yours?”

“River.” Hodges jerked his thumb in the direction of the Thames. His pained grimace suggested he had not come through without injury, but he brushed aside Fitzroy’s questioning expression.

Both turned to look down at the two remaining attackers. The short one had tried to crawl away discreetly, but he wasn’t making much progress. The tall one, it seemed, was dead.

Too bad.

“The duchess?” was Peregrine’s next question, and his driver lifted one shoulder in a gesture of unconcern. He took that to mean she was still in the carriage, probably with her hands over her eyes, which was just as well. She already thought badly of him; she didn’t need to have her worst imaginings made true.

“Keep an eye on her and turn the carriage around. And for goodness’ sake, keep her from looking out the window. I might need to work for a few answers,” he told Hodges, and the driver nodded.

As Will clucked to the horses, guiding them to back the carriage up, Peregrine noticed the silence around the bridge. He looked around to see a few gawkers standing at a distance—largely cart traffic who found themselves inconvenienced—but they stayed far away, fearful.

The only sound was the whimpers and laboured breathing of the wounded thug, clutching his knee. Fitzroy turned to him, his expression cold and unforgiving. “Start talking.”

The man glared up at him, defiance sparking in his bloodshot eyes. “You think I’m afraid of you?” he spat. “Traitor’s son.”

Peregrine sighed, letting his head roll on his neck to ease the tension building at the base of his skull, hopefully before it exploded. Abruptly, he seized the man by his filthy neck, letting his fingers bite deep.

“Do you know the most ironic part?—I mean, besides the truth that I am weary beyond belief of being blamed for my mother’s plots,” he said, his voice low and biting. “It is that a man like you dares to believe the shadow of my mother’s designs elevates you above me. You . A man who trades your principles for coin. You pox-ridden, greasy, murderous cur!”

The man gagged, scrabbling at Peregrine’s hand, his face turning red at first, then purple. His eyes were wide in fear.

Peregrine dropped him, letting his face take on his usual mask of supercilious boredom. “If you do not answer my questions, I shall leave you here for the magistrate to find. I think we both know what they do to men like you, and I wager I know what you would prefer. So tell me—who sent you to kill us?”

The man stared at Peregrine for a moment, as if he believed himself in the presence of a madman. “A contract through Red Hand. Not to kill,” he finally whispered. “Just to rough you up. To send a warning.”

A frisson of ice ran down his spine, but Peregrine kept his expression empty. “If you wanted to deliver a message, that could have come as a bloody letter.”

“Can’t read nor write. Weren’t my choice,” the man moaned softly, taking his words literally, and Peregrine rolled his eyes. “Had to slow you down.”

“Who put the contract up?”

“Don’t know. Red Hand probably don’t know either. Heard it came through a go-between. Someone with deep pockets. I don’t know no more, I swear.”

“Get out of here. If you can,” he told the short man curtly. “And be sure to tell your employer the message was received.”

Peregrine’s inner thoughts were ghastly quiet as he considered the few pieces of information, rubbing his aching right arm. Then he jerked his head up, looking for Hodges, who had turned the carriage and was leaning against one of its doors, blocking the duchess’s view—and exit.

Will nodded, understanding Peregrine’s unspoken message and drew his belt knife.

Peregrine didn’t bother looking backward to make sure he was safe from the thug he had let go. He just walked away, leaving the man to either lie in the street or pick himself up and get away. The magistrate or the Bow Street Runners would eventually get interested in what was happening here. It was up to Shorty to decide what was worse—pain, or London’s system of justice.

Having been lanced by the battlelust, the festering wound to his soul was now oozing corruption into his bloodstream. He felt tired. Hollow. Like he had been in the grip of some monstrous illness that had drained him of everything vital.

“We have to get the carriage moving. We are not safe here,” he told his driver, and Will nodded again, but he split a look between the drawn curtains and Peregrine. Uncertain if he should intervene.

Peregrine lay his own hand upon the handle of the carriage door, understanding Will’s hesitation to pull it open. But then he remembered he had told her to lock them. He could hear no sound from inside, so Peregrine knocked.

There was a long pause. “Fitzroy?” The duchess’s voice was soft.

“Yes,” he answered, keeping his voice neutral, and instead of just unlocking it, the blonde woman actually flung the carriage door open herself.

It wasn’t until that moment that Peregrine realised his eyes were downcast. That in the space between his breaths, he had been numb with wondering. What did the duchess think of him now? Was she about to look at him as though he were something truly reprehensible?

All he saw, however, was wide-eyed concern, tinged with fear. “Are you hurt?” she asked, and her eyes raked down his figure, as if looking for blood.

She cared for his well-being. At least a little. She was… afraid, not of him, but for him.

Anger was one of the few emotions he felt strongly. Most times, he felt hardly anything from the rest at all. Ordinary feelings were like conversation heard through a locked door, and he didn’t have the key.

But now the spark of surprise lit a warm spot in the pit of his belly. It was… such a fragile bloom of a thing.

A smile—small but genuine—touched the corners of his lips. “Would it please you more if I were bruised and battered, Sparkles?”

Blinking, the duchess’s face transformed from fear to confusion… to annoyance. She scowled at him. “Because you felt compelled to ask me this question, then yes. It would.”

Peregrine’s smile grew wider. “My ribs are likely to be black and blue by tomorrow, if that earns me any tender sympathies.”

“Get in, you lout,” she huffed at him, sliding backwards to make room.

With an exaggerated groan, he stepped inside and found his way to the bench, and the duchess shook her head, her voice a trifle shaky. “Stop carrying on. I know you are not that hurt.”

“How would you know? I could be hiding grievous wounds.”

“You are not. I… watched you fighting with them. And though it was quite terrifying—” her voice shifted upwards, threatening to break. She stopped and her throat bobbed as she swallowed. “I could see that you were… holding your own.”

That surprised him. She had watched him acting every bit as vulgarly as the brutes that attacked them? And she wasn’t looking at him as though he was a disgrace.

He leaned his head back against the cushion, not wanting to examine this revelation too closely. “Does that ruin my hopes for tender nursing of the lumps and bruises I earned in your defence? A cool cloth, soothing words—but no, you will probably just shove me off the bench and tell me to walk it off.”

She leveled a fierce frown at him—probably because the alternative was either to laugh or to weep. Closing his eyes, he let another small bit of truth slip from his lips without censure. “I prefer when you glower at me than when you are afraid.”

“You—what?”

They were treading in dangerous territory with such confessions. Peregrine ignored her question and forced his lids open again, watching as her eyebrows pinched together in bewilderment. “Do you have plans tonight? If so, you need to cancel them. I insist.”

She twisted her hands together in uncertainty, and then she crossed her arms over her chest in annoyance. “You learned something.”

“ Something would be one way of putting it. Things have become a bit more complicated.”

The duchess pursed her lips. Bless her little head, she was thinking hard. Perhaps Selina was right about seeing a spark within her after all. A potential that was trainable, however happily ignorant it was at the moment. He would have to keep the two of them from spending time together.

“You think that we did not get trapped by ordinary bandits,” she finally concluded. “That they targeted us deliberately.”

God help him, he didn’t want to make her fearful again. But she had been the one to demand that they keep no secrets. For whatever other flaws he had, at least he did try to have the integrity of his word. “I know it. Someone wishes us to stop looking into matters entirely.”

“You recognised them?”

“Not them so much as I recognised the type of men they were. It was the one I let go that told me we were to be frightened as a warning.”

The duchess held her head in her hands. “Why should they worry? We have found absolutely nothing. Caroline was our best suspect.”

Peregrine agreed, musing over the possibilities. The Order—which Selina had already vouched for—was now firmly off the list of suspects. Selina and her ilk would never resort to hiring a jackal like Red Hand.

But they weren’t the only clandestine forces of power in London.

“Fitzroy.”

Peregrine reined in his stray thoughts, looking at the duchess, who looked like she had sucked on a lemon. “Yes, Sparkles?”

“Why do you recognise the type of men they were? What have you had to do with such things?”

Damnation. He really put his boot in this one. “I have… had dealings with some of the less savoury elements of society.”

She lifted a slender golden eyebrow imperiously, like an irascible toddler. It reminded him of his sister Lark when she was small. Better… more innocent times. He couldn’t help it; he stifled a smile. Which, of course, only vexed the duchess more.

“Secrets,” he reminded her, as he shifted with a groan. This one wasn’t nearly as feigned. The side where he had been kicked ached like fury. “All I can safely tell you, Duchess, is that the Queen and Regent are not the only powerful factions in England.”

“And some are willing to be violent?” she asked softly.

“It seems so, Sparkles,” he agreed lightly. “Would that I had better sources to help lead us to the next possibilities. Alas, I had the unmitigated audacity to gallivant across the continent for the last year. Worse, the whole world decided to shift in my absence.”

She ignored his barbed comments, looking down at her lap, considering. “I may have someone we should speak with. Someone who, like the marchioness, values information quite highly.”

His nickname wasn’t bedeviling her anymore. He must be losing his touch.

“Are you referring to Lord Ravenscroft?” he asked her curiously. He knew quite a bit about Prinny’s magpie, including that he was quite cagy about giving up his information to others… and that he enjoyed a torrid but illicit love affair with his valet. He wondered if the duchess knew that part.

The duchess was frowning slightly, but her thoughts looked turned inward, as if she had remembered something she hadn’t before. “...Yes. Perhaps I need to pay a visit.”

Fitzroy sat forward, his bruised parts protesting, but he locked eyes with her so she would know he was as serious as the grave. “Not alone, you will not.”

Her eyes slid away, and she waved her hand dismissively. “Carlton House is safe enough. I can arrange to meet him there.”

It probably was, but she was hiding something. Some thought. Fortunately he had other leverage. “Going alone would be a violation of your rules, Sparkles,” he rebuked her. “And if you are going to disregard the rules, so will I. You look very peaceful when you sleep, incidentally.”

Face flaming, she put her hands on her hips. “Stay out of my bedroom, you scoundrel.”

“If only there were a way to make that happen…” he mused.

“Fine.” She gritted her teeth. “I will arrange a meeting at my home tomorrow at four. But your presence is going to make talking to him far more difficult. I wish you would trust me to manage him. Lord Ravenscroft does not seem to like you very much, and I cannot begin to imagine why that is.”

The warmth inside Peregrine snuffed abruptly, and he faced the window, noting that they were close to Atholl House. “Like most people who pretend they do not like me, his quarrel is really with my relations.”

As though realising the mood between them had shifted, she too looked out her window for the rest of the ride.