“I wouldn’t suppose quite so readily, Inspector.”
The voice, languid, even soft, chilled. Everyone looked toward the front door. They’d left it partially open. A gentleman stood just inside; he walked forward as they stared.
His dark eyes remained fixed on Sprigs. Alicia had grown used to Tony’s elegance—this man was equally impressive, moving with innate grace, slim, dark-haired, dressed in dark clothes that exuded that same austere style, a reflection of bone-deep confidence, of their assurance in who they were.
There was one difference. While Tony’s tones could cut, whiplike, this man’s voice projected a patently lethal threat, quietly efficient, like a scimitar slicing, unhindered, into flesh.
Suppressing a shiver, she glanced at Tony, then at his friends, and realized the newcomer was both known to them and accepted by them. An ally, definitely, yet she sensed he was someone around whom even they trod carefully.
Sprigs swallowed. He glanced at Tony. Behind him, the sergeant and his other two men were rigidly at attention.
“Dalziel.” The newcomer answered Sprigs’s unvoiced question. “From Whitehall.” He halted at Tony’s side and looked the unfortunate Sprigs in the eye. “I’ve already spoken with your superiors. You are to report back to Bow Street immediately, taking all your men, leaving this house in precisely the same state as it was when you, so unwisely, entered. You will not remove so much as a pin.”
He paused, then continued, “Your superiors have been somewhat forcefully reminded that, together with Lord Whitley, I am handling this matter, and that contrary to their suppositions, Bow Street’s mandate does not extend to countermanding or interfering with Whitehall’s actions.”
Sprigs, now all but at attention himself, nodded. “Yes, sir.” He sounded strangled.
Dalziel let a moment pass, then murmured, “You may go.”
They went with alacrity. At a nod from Sprigs, the junior stuck his head into the drawing room and summoned his companion; in short order, the five men from Bow Street were clattering down the steps, routed by a superior force.
All four gentlemen—Tony, Dalziel, Dearne, and Lostwithiel—stood in and about the front door and saw them off, watched them go. Trapped behind, screened from the sight by their broad shoulders, Alicia waited, somewhat impatiently. She knew the instant they all let down their guards.
Tony and Dearne visibly relaxed.
“Importunate devils,” Lostwithiel quipped.
“Indeed,” Dalziel replied.
They all started to turn inside—
Then paused.
Along with the others, Tony watched two carriages come clattering up, one from each end of the street. Both carriages pulled up before the house. The carriage doors swung open. Tristan sprang down from one carriage; from the other, Jack Hendon stepped down to the pavement. Both turned back to their respective carriages; each handed a lady down.
Kit, Jack’s wife, and Leonora, Tristan’s wife.
Barely pausing to shake out their skirts, both ladies swept toward the house—and saw each other. At the bottom of the steps, they met, exchanged names, shook hands, then, as one, turned and, beautiful faces decidedly set, swept up the steps.
On the pavement, Jack and Tristan exchanged long-suffering glances, and followed in their wakes.
All four men at the door gave way.
With barely a glance at them the ladies swept in. They saw Alicia, and pounced.
“Kit Hendon, my dear.” Taking Alicia’s hand, Kit waved toward Jack. “Jack’s wife. How terribly distressing for you.”
“Leonora Wemyss—I’m Trentham’s wife.” Leonora waved vaguely at her husband, too, and pressed Alicia’s hand. “Are your family quite all right?”
Alicia found a smile. “Yes—I believe so.” She gestured to the drawing room.
“It’s quite insupportable,” Kit declared. “We’ve come to help.”
“Indeed.” Leonora turned to the drawing room. “This is going to need action to set right.”
Together, the three entered the drawing room. The door shut behind them.
All six men in the front hall stared at the door, then glanced, briefly, at each other.
Dalziel sighed, pityingly or so they all took it, and turned to Tony. “I take it you have whatever Bow Street’s minions were sent to find?”
“Yes.” Succinctly, Tony described the letters, and how they fitted the scenario they now thought most likely, confirming that A. C. had used Ruskin’s information to arrange for merchantmen to be captured by the enemy.
At the end of his explanation, Dalziel, still and silent, stared out, unseeing, through the open door. Then, quietly, he said, “I want him.”
He glanced at Tony, then at the others. “I don’t care what you have to do—I want to know who A. C. is. As soon as possible. You have my full authority, and as for Whitley, suffice to say he’s ropeable. If you have need of his name, you have permission to use that, too.”
Briefly, he glanced at them again, then nodded. “I’ll leave you to it.”
He walked to the door. On the threshold he paused, and looked back. At Tony. “Incidentally, the information against Mrs. Carrington—there’s no way to trace it. I’ve tried. Whoever this man is, he’s extremely well connected—he knew exactly in whose ears to plant his seeds. When asked, every concerned soul said they heard it from someone else. I’ll continue to keep my ears open, but don’t expect any breakthrough on that front.”
Tony inclined his head.
Dalziel left, going lightly down the steps, then striding away along the street.
The five men in the front hall remained where they were until his footsteps had faded, then all dragged in a breath and glanced at each other.
“I’m suddenly very grateful I only had to deal with Whitley,” Jack said.
“Indeed, you should be.” Tony stepped forward and shut the door.
Charles met Tony’s gaze as he rejoined them, then glanced at Christian and Tristan. “How did he know?”
Christian raised his brows, openly resigned. “I suspect he knows one of our staff at the club rather well, don’t you?”
“Our club?” Charles looked pained. After a moment, he shook his head. “I don’t even want to think about that.”
Tristan clapped him on the shoulder.
They turned to the drawing room. The door opened; Maggs, Scully, Jenkins, Cook, and Fitchett all slipped out, bobbing before disappearing through the green baize door.
With a glance, Tony halted Maggs. “Check the parlor—I doubt the good inspector’s men had time to put their mess right.”
Maggs nodded and headed down the corridor.
Tristan opened the drawing-room door and led the gentlemen in.
Kit and Leonora were seated in armchairs facing Alicia and Adriana on the chaise. All four heads were together; they glanced up as the men entered, but the comments that clearly hovered on their tongues had to wait—the three boys had been crowding around the front window; seeing Tony, they flung themselves at him.
“Are they gone?”
“What did they want?”
“Who was that man? The one who just left.”
Tony looked down into three pairs of hazel eyes, all very like Alicia’s. When he didn’t immediately reply, Matthew tugged at his sleeve.
“You promised to tell us.”
He smiled and hunkered down to be more on their level. “Yes, they’ve gone, and they won’t be coming back. They’d been given false information, and thought there were documents hidden here—those letters I found. That’s what they were searching for. And that man who just left was from the government—he came to tell them they’d made a big mistake, and that they weren’t to bother you or your sisters anymore.”