Artemisia cast back in her mind, trying to imagine why someone would be after her alter-ego. Assuredly, ‘Mr. Beddington’ drove a hard bargain in the marketplace. His reputation for shrewd dealing might garner some resentment (especially if it were discovered that Mr. Beddington was actually a woman!), but Artemisia had cheated no one. This unprovoked attack made no sense.
“What did Mr. Shipwash do?” she asked.
“He tells them to leave their cards and Beddington would get back to them. Set them off something fierce. Not that I blamed them at first. This man Beddington is positively infuriating. He controls every farthing of my income and do you know I’ve never even seen him face to face?”
“Please, Felix, you’re wandering off the subject.” When his nose started to bleed again, she handed him her embroidered handkerchief. “Where is Mr. Shipwash?”
“I’m getting to it. One of the mugs starts swinging and knocks Shipwash flat and the other one begins tearing through everything like a whirlwind. I tried to stop them, but this is the thanks I got.” He pointed to his swelling eye.
“What were they looking for?”
“They kept saying something about a key,” Felix said, holding his head with his hand.
Artemisia shook her head in bewilderment. There was a goodly sum in the strongbox for day to day use in the business, but the lion’s share of Southwycke’s wealth was held by the Bank of London. Hadn’t she told her assistant to pay the threatening men who’d come trying to collect Felix’s debts? Were these even the same men? If they were, her stepson wasn’t admitting it.
“A key, you say. Did they think there was a safe with valuables on the premises?”
“No, they just want some blasted key. Beddington will know what they mean.” Felix mopped his nose with her scented kerchief and then shoved the soiled cloth into his pocket. “It’s all they want.”
A key. Something about that odd request niggled her brain. Someone else had asked about a key. Trevelyn as Thomas Doverspike and her father had spoken about one in that cryptic conversation she’d overheard in the garden. Yes! When Thomas (or Trevelyn or whatever the bloody man’s name was!) asked about a key, her own father told him he wanted Beddington. She’d taken the statement for the ramblings of a deranged mind. Now she wasn’t so sure. But what key could they possibly mean?
“You haven’t answered my question.” She turned her attention back to her stepson, who still sat splay-legged on the floor. “Where is Mr. Shipwash?”
Felix cleared his throat and raised himself unsteadily to his feet. He was unable to meet her gaze. “They took him.”
“Good heavens! You mean to say he’s been abducted?”
Felix nodded. “Kidnapped, I should rather say. They only left me behind to deliver their message. Guess they didn’t know who I was or they’d have taken a far more important hostage. They said Shipwash would be unharmed so long as their demands were met.”
“What do they want?” Artemisia clasped her hands before her to still their trembling.
“They want Beddington,” Felix said. “Or more precisely, this key he supposedly has. Beddington must show himself in the crypt of St. Paul’s at midnight tomorrow. With the key, mind.” Felix raised an admonitory finger to emphasize the key’s importance. “It’s no good coming without it, they said. And they were very particular about not calling in the authorities. If they see so much as a shadow of a peeler, the deal is off.”
“What . . . what if Mr. Beddington can’t come or hasn’t got any key?”
“Then in that case, I hope James Shipwash’s soul is in order,” Felix said gravely. “Ordinarily, I’d judge these chaps as untrustworthy in the extreme, but on this point, I’d not doubt them. If Beddington doesn’t show, or he doesn’t produce the key . . . “ The silence hung above them like the sword of Damocles. “They promised to feed Mr. Shipwash to the fishes.”
* * *
Felix stood in the doorway of Beddington’s office and watched his stepmother bundle herself into the waiting hansom. She was in a state and no mistake. It was almost worth this shiner to see her face blanch whiter than a fish’s belly.
Almost.
Who’d have thought the bespectacled Shipwash would have such a devastating left hook in him? The clerk had surprised Felix and his confederates with his fighting spirit when the Russians began taking the rooms apart.
Felix fingered his bruise and drew back when the pressure caused additional pain. Shipwash’s lucky punch was going to devastate his appearance for at least a fortnight. How was a man supposed to move in the best circles when he looked like he’d been on the short end of a drunken brawl? He’d have to curtail his activities till the bruise faded enough to be covered by rice powder.
Damn shame Shipwash had to strike him like that. Felix held no animosity toward Beddington’s assistant. When he agreed to help the Russians with their plan, they warned him that it was dangerous to release a hostage alive, even once the demands were met. Still, it wasn’t as if he’d plotted for Shipwash to die. He’d fully intended somehow to arrange for the man’s safe passage to Australia or India or some other pox-ridden outpost of the empire once this sorry business was concluded. He’d meant to see to it that Shipwash lived.
But now, he couldn’t.
Chapter 17
Artemisia found her father in the wind-blown garden, humbly sweeping the first of the autumn leaves from the stone path as if he were merely a gardener instead of a duchess’s sire. The sight gave Artemisia pause.
Angus Dalrymple had been such a robust man, of penetrating intelligence and full of joie de vivre. To see him now, so reduced by his malady, nearly broke her heart. It was an insult against nature.
It was tempting to blame the Almighty for her father’s predicament. When Angus came down with a blindingly high fever, at first it had seemed enough for him just to survive the illness. The family was elated when the fever unexpectedly left him. Then, when it became apparent he’d been permanently impaired and would likely continue his downward slide, her mother turned bitter. Even the vicar stationed at their cantonment had been little help. He cautioned against questioning the will of God.
As if God had purposely struck her father down. The vicar’s version of God seemed too capricious and evil to be named a Superior Being.
Surprisingly enough, it had been Naresh who’d helped Artemisia make peace with her father’s condition.
“All life is precious,” Naresh told her. “Your father, he is still one of the happiest of fellows. Surely a merry heart is pleasing to your God. All the time your father was in my country, he worked like a pukka devil, never stopping to enjoy the bounty of his labor. Now he rests. Who is to say this life is less worthy than his previous one?”
At that moment, Angus must have sensed her presence for he lifted his head and smiled at her. It was a smile of childish simplicity, and her heart constricted at the sight.
“Hello, sweeting,” he said. “What brings such a pretty lady to me garden?”
She returned his smile, not certain whether he knew her or not this day, since he used an endearment instead of her name.
“Good morning, Father,” she said. “I need to speak with you on a matter of some urgency. Please, sit with me.”
Angus obliged and settled beside her on the iron-work bench with a long sigh of contentment. As Naresh had observed, he was clearly enjoying himself.
“Some weeks ago, a young man visited you in the garden,” Artemisia said. “A tall gentleman, dark hair and eyes. Do you remember?”
“A young man, ye say. Hmm.” Angus tapped his temple in thought. “We see so few visitors these days, just sparrows mostly. Seems like a body would remember a young man among them. What with him having no feathers to speak of.”
Despair clawed at her throat, but she swallowed back the sob. “He helped you prune the vines.”
Angus squinted as if straining to see the young man in his mind’s eye.
“And he spoke to you.” Artemisia tried to remember the exact words Trevelyn Deveridge had said to her father. “Something about the tigress feeding by moonlight.”
“But the bear feeds whenever it may,” her father said reflexively. A glint of understanding flashed in Angus’s pale eyes, then faded as quickly as it appeared. He gave her a puzzled grimace. “Aye, I think I mind him. What does the young man want?”
“He’s looking for a key,” Artemisia said grasping at the hope her father would remember something useful. “Please, Father, try to think. It’s dreadfully important.”
Angus frowned for a moment; then a smile spread over his wrinkled face. “Beddington’s key!”
“Yes, that’s it precisely.” Relief flooded her chest. “Where is Beddington’s key?”
Angus patted her cheek and chuckled. “Why, with Mr. Beddington, of course. Bless me, if ye aren’t a bit simple, lass.”
Since her father fell ill, Artemisia had borne the weight of her family’s well-being. While she relished taking on the decisions and enjoyed the measure of control her position afforded, suddenly, with Mr. Shipwash’s abduction, she felt the full burden. Now she was even responsible for whether her assistant lived or died and for the first time, Artemisia didn’t know what to do. Her face crumpled in misery.
“There, there,” Angus said when he noticed her distress. “I didn’t mean that, Larla. Ye mustn’t pay any heed to an auld man’s ramblings. Of course, ye’re a right sharp lassie and I’ll have words with any as tries to deny it.”
He put a wiry arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. Nestled against his chest, she was comforted by his familiar scent, brandy and pipe tobacco with an undertone of hedge clippings.
“Oh, Father, what am I to do?”
“Just lay yer head, lass,” he crooned as he patted her hair with a callused hand. “Bide ye awhile. Surely, there’s naught needs doing at present.”
Artemisia allowed her head to sink into his shoulder. For a few moments, she’d obey him. It would give her time to think. For now, the garden was still a riot of blooms. In a few months, dry leaves would scuttle across the path before them, whispering their dying secrets to the dull grass. Winter is coming, they’d say.
Winter comes to us all, Artemisia thought bleakly.
In the winter of Angus Dalrymple’s life, he had no more advice to offer her. But he’d given her plenty when he was able and it was time she put his teaching to good use.
Logic. That’s what this knot wanted. Someone thought Mr. Beddington was in possession of a key of some sort and, given the object’s obvious significance, would presumably know what key was meant. Since she was Beddington and hadn’t a clue, there clearly had been a misunderstanding somewhere.
She needed more information.
The trouble was the only other person who’d ever mentioned a key was Trevelyn.
She sat bolt upright.
That’s why he asked so many questions about Mr. Beddington, why he was so insistent about meeting Beddington. Trevelyn Deveridge was looking for the mysterious key as well.