“Don’t move,” Nathaniel murmured to Alice, stepping in front of her and raising his weapon.
The Englishman and Dimitri exchanged a look, then, apparently realizing they were outmatched, retreated swiftly into the shadows.
“Damn it!” The expletive burst from him as he took off running after the ruffians.
He gave chase, but soon they split up. He decided to follow the Englishman, since he was probably the mysterious Lord A they were looking for. Dimitri was already identified and located; he could be dealt with later. Right now, the Englishman was their main objective. He hounded the shadowy figure for a few minutes, darting in and out of sight. The Englishman shot at him. He took cover and reloaded, firing back as he ran after the man, but soon lost track of him amid the darkened warehouse. His quarry must have exited the building, for not even the footsteps echoed anymore amid the cavernous space.
Reaching the site where he had last seen the Englishman, Nathaniel found an unlocked side door. When he peered through, there was no sign of the man anywhere. He had lost an important suspect. The clearest lead they had ever had.
Double damn.
He couldn’t give chase blindly through the night. By now the man could be anywhere, and he couldn’t risk leaving Alice alone. Dimitri might come back for her. One of the guards might regain consciousness and attack her. The risks were too great.
At least they had caught a glimpse of the Englishman. Not enough to identify him, but enough to rule out some candidates, based on voice, height, and build. It was some progress. They would capture him another time.
He returned to find Alice tying one of the miscreants with a secure rope, holding him down with a knee on his back as she bound his hands. Nathaniel yanked a necktie from one of the unconscious guards and used it to bind him with it. Finished with her task, Alice stood, panting and disheveled, and reloaded her pistol with steady hands.
One body lay still. The one who had shot at him and Alice had taken out. The others had disappeared. Wounded, but probably not seriously enough if they were able to slink away. At least they had two of the attackers securely bound, ready to be transported.
“They’ll fit in the coach,” Alice said.
Nathaniel nodded grimly and helped her lift the men. Between them, they loaded the two prisoners into Alice’s waiting vehicle.
“We’ll take my coach. It’s larger and the coachman is trustworthy. I’ll pay for and send your coach away,” he told her and she nodded. Neither spoke beyond the necessary.
“Where to?” she asked once the carriage door closed.
Nathaniel glanced at the bound men slumped across from them. “Let’s take them to him,” he said. There was no need to say Dalton’s name out loud. She would know who he meant.
She gave a single nod and signaled the driver.
CHAPTER 23
Thetensioninsidethecoach was as thick as the fog over the Thames. Alice sat beside Nathaniel, pistol resting on her lap. Nathaniel’s own weapon remained drawn as well, his eyes never leaving the prisoners, now stirring groggily under their watchful eyes.
He didn’t speak, and yet his silence spoke as loudly as a shout. She knew there must be a thousand questions he wanted to ask her but was biding his time. She had another thousand questions of her own. When had he returned? Why hadn’t he told her he was back? How had he known where she would be? When she saw him leaping out of the shadows to fight by her side, for a moment she thought she was hallucinating.
But he was real. Thunderous and angry. Exuding danger beside her. Making her nerves thrum like a plucked chord with nervousness and excitement.
At last, the coach turned onto a private street at the very end of Hyde Park, behind Kensington Palace. Alice leaned closer tothe window and gave her code name to the man standing guard at the gates. Recognizing the name as belonging to one of the few people Dalton gave automatic entrance to his home, the guard hastened to open the iron gates. The coach drove through, its wheels muffled against the granite setts of the street, and then passed between the stone columns of yet another gate guarded by the duke’s own men, this one leading to the house’s private drive.
Unlike the uniform terraces they’d passed along Piccadilly, the houses on this street stood alone. Huge mansions surrounded by gardens, set back behind high iron gates and flanked by imposing stone pillars. Dalton was the only peer who lived in this newly built neighborhood, away from Mayfair, the aristocracy’s stronghold. Most of the other houses belonged to new money. Industrialists, tycoons, new and foreign money.
However, the Duke of Dalton’s London residence was a perfect fit for a man like him. Secretive and commanding. Self-contained. Secure. The tall hedgerows ensured any comings and goings remained unseen.
Commissioned by the duke some ten years ago, the mansion was not only a fashionable address. It was a fortress cleverly disguised in Portland stone and pediments. Suited to the public duties of the Duke of Dalton—and his private ones.
The coach stopped in front of a portico flanked by Doric columns holding a triangular pediment that protected a heavy carved wood door reinforced with iron.
“You go knock on the door,” Nathaniel murmured, his breath tickling her ear and raising goosebumps all over her arm. “I’ll keep these miscreants in check.”
She hesitated for a moment, then nodded and slipped from the coach and up the steps.
The door opened immediately, as if the butler was already expecting her. The duke appeared in shirtsleeves shortly after, hair mussed, as if he had been roused from sleep, but face alert.
“We have brought a couple of men. Guards only, but they might have relevant information.”
Dalton looked once at the coach, then down the drive.
