"I'll fetch my shawl and bonnet," Cecilia said, hurrying out the door.
"Perhaps I'd best go with her," said Lady Meriton.
"Excellent idea," said Sir Harry. "Better yet, why don't you pack Mrs. Waddley a portmanteau and follow with it. She's bound to want to stay the night at Cheney House."
She nodded as Cecilia appeared in the doorway.
"I'll see you to the carriage," Janine said, running ahead of Sir Harry to Cecilia's side. She put an arm around her and led her downstairs and out the door.
Elsdon's carriage was standing just outside. Quickly, Janine hugged Cecilia and saw Sir Harry hand her into the carriage. She stood on the step and watched as the carriage drove down the street and turned south at the corner. Slowly she turned to reenter the house, aware of shouting and scurrying as servants ran to do Lady Meriton's bidding. She asked a passing footman headed toward the servants' quarters to fetch her maid.
Something was bothering her, but she couldn't say what it was. She stood uncertainly in the hallway, trying to puzzle it out. Behind her came a loud banging of the door knocker. With the butler and footmen vanished into the house's nether regions, she stepped forward to open the door.
On the other side stood Lord Havelock! He grasped her by the shoulders and half-pushed, half-led her into the house.
"Is Miss Swafford here?" he asked anxiously. His clothes were in wild disarray and liberally smeared with dirt.
"Loudon! Stephen! Grab that man!" ordered Lady Meriton uselessly from the top of the stairs. The two servants were not about.
He abruptly raised his hands from her shoulders but made no move to bolt for the open door. "Wait, Lady Meriton—"
The broad-shouldered figure of Branstoke cut off the sunlight streaming in the door. He held a pistol in his hand aimed at Lord Havelock.
Suddenly what had been bothering Janine surfaced in her mind. "The carriage went the wrong way!" she blurted out. She grabbed Lord Havelock's arm. "You're the government agent, aren't you?"
"What?—"
She shook his arm angrily. "You're the one investigating white slavery, aren't you?"
"Yes, damn it, I am! Is Miss Swafford here?"
"But Cecilia identified you as abducting Miss Swafford," said Lady Meriton, confused and increasingly frightened.
"I did. But she didn't trust me and ran. And I'm sorry for hitting you, Branstoke," he said, glancing his way. "In the dark, I took you for one of Elsdon's men.”
Branstoke lowered his gun slightly and came into the hall. He remembered Miss Amblethorp mentioned a carriage. "Where's Cecilia?" he asked in a dead voice, for he feared the answer with every particle of his being.
Lady Meriton moaned and sagged down on a stair step. Janine's hand gripped Lord Havelock's arm tightly, her nails digging into the wool sleeve. "With Sir Harry," she whispered past parched lips.
For a heartbeat, the hall was silent, and then everyone began talking at once. Lady Meriton-tried to explain what happened, but her words were disjointed and punctuated with asides to Janine that she was right. Finally, Branstoke and Havelock abandoned their efforts to get any sense out of Lady Meriton and turned to Janine.
She gulped and clung to Lord Havelock. "H—he said he was taking her to Cheney House, for her father was ill. But I watched them as they drove away. They should have turned north at the end of the block to go to Cheney House. They turned south!"
"South!" exclaimed Branstoke.
"Where could he be taking her? From my information, his cargo is to sail this afternoon with the tide," said Havelock. He looked up at Branstoke. "The admiralty is waiting downriver to intercept the ship."
"South, you say," repeated Branstoke. "Damn it, of course! He's not using that ship. It's a decoy! He's headed for the other side of the river!"
"What?" Havelock asked, his eyes intent upon Branstoke, though he kept an arm about Janine.
"I've had a man watching Waddley's. Last night he told me of lighter activity in and out of there to the other side of the river. He said the ship docked at Waddley's looked like it was riding curiously high in the water for a fully loaded cargo ship. Cecilia and I concluded he would only take his human cargo, which wouldn't weigh the ship down as much. But what if those lighters were transferring the cargo to another ship, to a smaller one, perhaps, anchored across the river? To a type of ship that the admiralty would not stop?"
"You mean something like a hoy, which sails the river between London and Margate?"
"Precisely. It gets by your planned reception committee and meets with a ship anchored somewhere beyond Gravesend. Probably along the coast between the Isle of Sheppey and Margate."
"Yes, if he is suspicious at all—which Elsdon is—that is something he'd do. Particularly as I believe he's leaving the country with this, his last cargo. We'd better get a message out using the semaphore towers. My horse is fresh yet." He looked inquiringly at Branstoke.
