Worth Any Price Read online

  “Yes…and then he’ll kiss my bony arse for capturing a returned transportee. And I’ll be on the front page of the Times, with scores of women begging for my attention.”

  Nick’s smile turned wry. “That’s not as enjoyable as you might think,” he informed his friend.

  “No? Well, I’d like to try it, nevertheless.” Sayer cocked his brow expectantly. “Are you game?”

  Nick nodded with a sigh. “Where do you want to start looking?”

  “Reports are that Follard has been seen in the slums between Hanging Ax Alley and Dead Man’s Lane. It’s like an anthill with all the holes in the walls, and tunnels between the cellars—”

  “Yes, I know the place.” Nick kept his face expressionless, although he was aware of cold distaste coiling in his belly. He had gone in those slums before, and even with his high tolerance for the horrors of the underworld, it was a nasty experience. The last time he had visited Hanging Ax Alley, he had seen a mother prostituting her child for gin, while beggars and whores crammed in the narrow lanes like sardines.

  “We’ll have to search quickly,” Nick said. “Once they realize we’re in the area, word will spread fast, and Follard will slip away before we ever clap eyes on him.”

  Sayer grinned with barely repressed enthusiasm. “Let’s go, then. You lead the way.”

  They left the tavern and made their way through streets bisected with open gutters, the stench of dead animals and rotting garbage hanging thick in the air. The decaying buildings leaned against each other as if in exhaustion, groaning with every strong wind that blew against them. There were no signs to identify streets, nor were there numbers on houses or buildings. A stranger to the area could easily become lost and quickly find himself robbed, carved up and left for dead in some dark yard or alley. The poverty of the slum inhabitants was unimaginable, and their only escape was the temporary one to be found in a gin shop. In fact, there was a gin shop on nearly every street.

  It bothered Nick to see the wretchedness of the people around him, the skeletal children, the degraded women and desperate men. The only healthy creatures to be found were the rats and mice that scuttled across the street. Until now, Nick had accepted all of this as an inevitable part of life. For the first time, he wondered what could be done for these people. Good God, they needed so much that it nearly overwhelmed him. He remembered what Lottie had said to him only a few days earlier…“There must be some issue that concerns you,” she had said. “Something you want to fight for…” Now that he’d had time to consider it, he had to admit that she was right. As Lord Sydney, he could accomplish far more than he ever had as Nick Gentry.

  Shoving his hands in his pockets, Nick glanced cautiously at Sayer, who was clearly thinking of nothing more than finding Dick Follard. Just as he should be. No distractions, Nick warned himself, even as another voice filtered through his mind.

  “There comes a time when a man has tweaked the devil’s nose once too often,” Morgan had told him. “And if he’s too stubborn or slow-witted to realize it, he’ll pay with his own blood. I knew when to stop. And so must you…”

  It was indeed time to stop, although Nick hadn’t known it until this moment. After helping Sayer with this one task, Nick would finally let go of his identity as a runner and reinvent himself once more. This time as Lord Sydney…a man with a wife, a home, perhaps even children someday.

  The idea of seeing Lottie pregnant with his child caused a sweet pang in his chest. Finally he was beginning to understand why Sir Ross had found it so easy to resign from the magistracy when he’d married, and why Morgan valued his family above all else.

  “Gentry,” Sayer muttered. “Gentry?”

  Lost in his thoughts, Nick did not notice until Sayer spoke once more.

  “Sydney!”

  Nick gave him an inquiring glance. “Yes?”

  Sayer was frowning. “Keep your wits about you. You seem a bit distracted.”

  “I’m fine,” Nick said curtly, realizing that he had indeed been preoccupied. In this place, that could be a fatal mistake.

  They ventured into the slum district, and Nick assessed the area with a critical glance, trying to remember what he knew of the warren of alleys, tunnels, and crossways between buildings. He passed a hand lightly over his chest, checking the reassuring weight of an iron-filled leather cudgel in his coat pocket.

  “Let’s start with the buildings on the north side of the street,” Nick said. “We’ll work our way to the corner.”

  Sayer nodded, his body tensing visibly as he prepared for action.

  They searched the buildings methodically, pausing briefly to ask questions of those who seemed likely to know something. The rooms and burrows were badly lit, not to mention crowded and fetid. Nick and Sayer met with no resistance, although they were the focus of many suspicious and hostile stares.

  In a workshop near the end of the street—ostensibly a buckle-maker’s shop, but in reality a harbor for coiners and forgerers—Nick saw the betraying flicker in a scrawny old man’s eyes when he heard the mention of Follard’s name. While Sayer checked through the shop, Nick approached the man with an inquiring gaze.

  “Do you know anything about Follard?” Nick asked gently, fingering the edge of his own left sleeve with his opposite hand, in a signal well-known to those in the London rookeries. The subtle gesture was a promise of payment for valid information.

  The man’s paper-thin lids lowered over his yellowed eyes as he considered the offer. “I might.”

  Nick crossed his palm with a few coins, and the old man’s wrinkled fingers closed over the money. “Can you tell me where I may find him?”

  “Ye might try the gin shop on Melancholy Lane.”

  Nodding in thanks, Nick glanced at Sayer and indicated with a swerve of his gaze that it was time to leave.

  Once outside, they headed swiftly to Melancholy Lane, just two streets over from Hanging Ax Alley. As with most gin shops near Fleet Ditch, the place was heavily packed long before noon, with drunken patrons sitting on the ground in a stupor. After conferring briefly, Nick went to the entrance of the shop, while Sayer circled the dilapidated building to find the exit in back.

  As soon as Nick entered the shop, a few ugly rumbles went through the crowd inside. It was an unfortunate fact that a runner’s height and size made it nearly impossible for him to blend in with a crowd. It was even more unfortunate that Nick had made countless enemies in the underworld once he had given evidence against his criminal associates and went to serve at Bow Street. That hadn’t exactly increased his popularity in Fleet Ditch. Ignoring the threatening murmurs, Nick glanced over the crowd with narrowed eyes.

  Suddenly he saw the face he had been looking for. Through his travels from one continent to another, Dick Follard hadn’t changed one whit, his ratlike face surmounted with the same shock of oily black hair, his sharp teeth giving his mouth a serrated appearance. Their gazes met in a moment of icy, electric challenge.

  Follard was gone in an instant, slipping through the crowd with the ease of a rodent as he headed to the back of the shop. Nick shoved past the mass of bodies in his way, plowing through them with blind determination. By the time he reached the alley, Follard had disappeared into a complex network of fences, walls, and side streets. Sayer was nowhere to be seen.

  “Sayer!” Nick shouted. “Where the hell are you?”

  “Over here,” came the runner’s hoarse cry, and Nick spun around to see him climbing a six-foot-high fence in pursuit of Follard.

  Following swiftly, Nick clambered over the fence, dropped to the ground, and ran full tilt down a dark alley shadowed by the overhanging eaves of the buildings on either side. The alley came to an abrupt end, and Nick skidded to a halt as he saw Sayer staring upward. Follard was scaling the deteriorated outside wall of an ancient three-story warehouse, resembling an insect as he sought fingerholds in the broken brick surface. After ascending two stories, he finally managed to reach a hole large enough for him to scuttle into
. His bony frame disappeared inside the warehouse.

  Sayer swore in disgust. “We’ve lost him,” he said flatly. “There’s no way in hell that I would try that.”

  Surveying the wall appraisingly, Nick approached it with a few running strides, launching himself upward. He took the same path Follard had, digging his hands and the toes of his boots into the crumbling holes in the wall, using them to gain purchase. Panting with effort, he climbed after the vanished fugitive.

  “Goddamn, Gentry!” he heard Sayer exclaim approvingly. “I’ll find some other way to get inside.”

  Nick continued to scale the wall until he crawled into the gaping second-story opening. Once inside, he went still and listened intently. He heard the sound of footfalls above. His gaze shot to a ladder that led to the top floor of the building, in place of a set of stairs that had crumbled long ago. Nick headed to it with rapid, stealthy strides. The ladder was comparatively new, indicating that the warehouse was being put to use despite its deterioration. Most likely the building served to store smuggled or stolen goods, as well as providing an excellent sanctuary for fugitives. No law enforcement officer with any wits would have dared set foot in the dilapidated place.

  The ladder creaked from Nick’s weight. Once he reached the third floor, he saw that the floor planks and rafters had mostly rotted away, leaving only a row of support timbers that resembled the ribs of a massive decaying skeleton. Although the edges of the space still bore some flimsy planks, the center of the floor was gone, as was that of the second story, leaving a potentially deadly thirty-foot drop straight through the middle of the building.

  As soon as Dick Follard saw Nick, he turned and began to make his way across one of the support timbers. Immediately Nick realized his intentions. The building next door was so close that it would require a three-foot leap at most. All Follard had to do was launch himself from one of the gaping window-holes, and he could escape to the adjoining rooftop.

  Gamely Nick followed him, steeling himself to ignore the yawning void beneath the timber. Placing his feet carefully, he pursued Follard’s retreating form, gaining confidence as he passed the halfway-mark on the beam. However, just as he was about to reach the end, an ominous crack pierced the silence, and he felt the beam give way beneath him. His weight had been too much for the corroded wood.

  With a curse, Nick launched himself toward the next timber, and somehow caught it on his descent. Blindly he clutched at the beam and wrapped his arms around it. A shower of broken timber and brittle planks fell with a thunderous sound, while a stinging rain of dust and powdered wood made Nick’s eyes blur. Gasping, he fought to lift himself atop the timber, but a sudden numbing blow to his back nearly caused him to fall. Nick grunted in mingled surprise and pain, and looked into Follard’s triumphant face above him.

  An evil grin split the bastard’s narrow face. “I’ll send you to hell, Gentry,” he said, venturing farther out onto the beam. He stomped on Nick’s hand with his booted foot. The bones in Nick’s fingers cracked, drawing a growl of agony from his throat.

  Follard laughed in manic glee. “One,” he cried. “Two.” He stomped again, the crushing force of his foot causing a brilliant burst of pain to shoot up Nick’s arm. Follard’s boot lifted once more as he prepared for the coup de grace.

  “Three,” Nick gasped and grabbed at Follard’s ankle, jerking him off-balance.

  Letting out a shrill scream, Follard toppled from the beam, his body falling two stories to hit the bottom floor with fatal force.

  Nick didn’t dare look down. Desperately he focused his attention on pulling himself onto the beam. Unfortunately his strength had been depleted, and his left hand was crippled. Writhing like a worm on a hook, he arched helplessly over the fatal drop.

  Incredulously, he realized that he was going to die.

  * * *

  The note trembled in Lottie’s hand as she read it again.

  Lottie,

  Please help me. Mama says that Lord Radnor is coming to take me away. I do not want to go anywhere with him, but she and Papa say I must. They have locked me in my room until he comes. I pray you will not let this happen, Lottie, as you are my only hope.

  Your loving sister,

  Ellie

  A village boy had brought the tear-stained letter not long after Nick had left for the day. The boy claimed that Ellie had bid him to come to her bedroom window and given him the message. “She said if I brought it to ye, I’d get an ‘alf crown,” he said, shifting his weight uneasily, as if he suspected that the promise would not be honored.

  Lottie had gratified the boy by giving him a half sovereign instead, and then sent him to the kitchen with Mrs. Trench for a hot meal. Pacing around the entrance hall, she gnawed frantically on her knuckle as she wondered what to do. She had no way of knowing when Nick would return home. But if she waited too long, Radnor might have already fetched Ellie.

  The thought filled her with such distress that Lottie clenched her fists and uttered a cry of outrage. Her parents, allowing Radnor to come take poor innocent Ellie…as if she were an animal to be traded. “She’s only sixteen,” she said aloud, her face hot with the blood of anger. “How can they? How could they possibly live with themselves?”

  And there had been no mention of marriage in the note, which could only lead Lottie to believe that her parents were virtually prostituting Ellie for their own benefit. The realization made her ill.

  No, she could not wait for Nick. She would go and collect Ellie herself, before Radnor came. In fact, Lottie was furious with herself for not already having done so. But who could have predicted that Radnor would have wanted Ellie, or that her parents would have given her to him like this?

  “Harriet,” she called out sharply, striding to the nearest bellpull and tugging it frantically. “Harriet!”

  The dark-haired maid appeared at once, having run so fast that her spectacles were a bit askew. “Milady?”

  “Fetch my traveling coat and bonnet.” Pausing, Lottie considered the footmen in Nick’s employ, and decided that Daniel was the largest and most capable man to help her in his absence. “Tell Daniel that he is to accompany me on an errand. I want the carriage to be readied immediately.”

  “Yes, Lady Sydney!” Harriet rushed to obey, seeming infected by Lottie’s urgency.

  In less than a minute, Daniel appeared, his tall form clad in black livery. He was a good-natured, robust young man with dark brown hair and sherry-colored eyes. “My lady,” he said, making an impeccable bow and waiting for her instructions.

  Receiving her bonnet from Harriet, Lottie tied it deftly beneath her chin. “Daniel, we are going to my parents’ home to fetch my younger sister. I have no doubt that my family will offer strong objections. There is even a possibility of a physical altercation…and while I don’t want anyone to be hurt, we must bring my sister back here with us. I trust that I may depend on you?”

  He understood what she was asking. “Naturally, my lady.”

  She smiled slightly, her face pale. “Thank you.”

  The carriage was prepared in record time, and Lottie clutched the balled-up note in her fist as the vehicle rolled swiftly away from Betterton Street. She tried to make herself think clearly, to understand what was happening.

  What did Radnor want with her sister? In the years that Lottie had known him, he had barely seemed to notice Ellie’s existence, except to make disparaging comments—that Ellie was plump, simpleminded, unrefined. Why choose her, of all women, to make his mistress? Perhaps because Radnor knew that it was the worst way to hurt Lottie. He knew that she could never be content in her marriage to Nick knowing that her happiness had been purchased at the price of her sister’s.

  Seething with fear and anger, Lottie twisted her hands in her skirts.

  It took only a quarter-hour to reach her parents’ home, but to Lottie the wait was unbearable. When they arrived at the street of Tudor houses and Lord Radnor’s carriage was nowhere in sight, Lottie allowed herself to f
eel a glimmer of hope. Perhaps she was not too late.

  The vehicle halted, and Daniel helped her down. His calm face helped to steady her frayed nerves as she stepped to the pavement and allowed him to accompany her to the house. The front yard was vacant, her brothers and sisters strangely absent.

  At Lottie’s nod, Daniel used his fist to knock firmly on the door, alerting the occupants of the house to their arrival. Soon the door was opened by a maid.

  “Miss ‘Oward,” the maid said uneasily, her eyes wide in her freckled face.

  “I am Lady Sydney now,” Lottie replied and glanced at the footman. “You may wait out here, Daniel. I will call for you if your assistance is needed.”

  “Yes, milady.”

  Entering the house, Lottie saw her parents standing in the doorway of one of the receiving rooms…her mother, looking pinched and determined, her father hardly able to lift his gaze from the ground. The signs of their guilt fanned her outrage into quiet fury. “Where is Ellie?” she demanded without preamble.

  Her mother stared at her without emotion. “That is not your concern, Charlotte. As I made clear during your last visit, you are not welcome here. You cut yourself off from the family with your selfish actions.”

  A bitter reply rose to Lottie’s lips, but before she could utter a word, she heard a determined thumping sound from the back of the house. “Lottie!” came her sister’s muffled voice. “Lottie, I’m here! Don’t leave me!”

  “I’m coming,” Lottie called and shot her parents a disbelieving gaze. “Shame on you,” she said softly, each word an indictment. “You planned to give her to Radnor, knowing that would ruin any chance for her to have a decent life. How can you live with yourselves?”

  Ignoring her mother’s vehement outcry, Lottie strode to Ellie’s bedroom and turned the key that had been left in the lock.

  Ellie burst from the room with a flurry of grateful sobs, throwing herself on Lottie. Her brown hair was matted and tangled. “I knew you’d help me,” she gasped, blotting her wet cheeks on Lottie’s shoulders. “I knew it. Lottie, take me away at once. He’s coming. He’ll be here any minute.”