“Efficient,” Hawkes said dryly. “As former military, I’m perversely proud of how quickly they got here. Is there a window I can leap out of?”
“Oh, I’ve got something better,” Hardy said. “Follow me.”
Dot, Delilah, Angelique, and Mr. Delacorte, who was up early looking for coffee, as he’d taken Mr. Bellingham out last night to sing songs in a pub and they’d both gotten carried away buying each other pints, remained frozen in indecision following the first round of pounding. Mr. Bellingham was still in bed.
BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM.
Dot cleared her throat. “We’ve had such a lot of different kinds of knocks, lately,” she mused. “I wonder who would knock like—”
“OPEN UP, BY ORDER OF THE CROWN!” a man bellowed.
“Don’t open it, Dot,” Captain Hardy ordered from the stairs. He was rushing down, Lord Bolt behind him. “Everyone, stand well behind me and Bolt. And don’t say aword.”
They obeyed, forming a little phalanx beneath the chandelier.
And Captain Hardy opened the door.
He didn’t so much as twitch a brow at the sight of a half dozen or so red-coated men queued up.
A self-important young man with a long chin at once said, “We are agents of the crown and we’ve a warrant to search your premises for one Mr. Christian Hawkes.”
Hardy studied him quizzically.
“With all due respect, Sergeant...” Captain Hardy cocked a brow.
“Pangborne,” said the young man.
“Thank you, Pangborne. My name is Captain Tristan Hardy. This is Viscount Bolt.”
Sergeant Pangborne went still. As did every soldier behind him. His expression went warier and warier by degrees, as he began to realize that some terrible and strange mistake had been made.
Or that he was about to become embroiled in a controversy he’d truly rather avoid at this point in his career.
Because everyonewho was a soldier knew who Captain Tristan Hardy was. He was a bloody legend. The blockade captain who’d finally crushed the reign of the murderous Black Rock smuggling gang. Who had been rewarded by the king.
And, well, everyone who read the broadsheets at one time in their lives knew who Viscount Bolt was. He was rather a legend, too.
“Who or what are you looking for and why.” Captain Hardy made it sound like an order, not a question.
“Mr. Christian Hawkes is suspected in the abduction of Lord Brundage’s fiancée, Lady Aurelie Capet, and in the theft of a...” he cleared his throat “...the theft of a jewel.”
His confident delivery wavered in the face of Captain Hardy’s scathing incredulity.
“I have honestly never heard anything more ridiculous in my life,” Captain Hardy said in utter contemptuous mystification. Almost a hush. “The only Mr. Christian Hawkes I know who might have some association with Brundage was a chargé d’affaires in Switzerland during the war and an officer of the Home Secretary here in England. He nearly sacrificed his life in perilous service to his country. He was instrumental in laying the foundation of English intelligence and is coincidentally an enormous part of the reason you’re still able to wear a red uniform. He is a damned hero. Last I heard he was still a French prisoner of war. It would be my honor to meet him. Yours, too. You couldn’t possibly meanthatChristian Hawkes, could you?”
A long silence ensued, during which no one blinked.
“I . . . suppose so, sir?” the sergeant said miserably.
“Perhaps Brundage is confused, as we recently had another hero staying with us by the name of the Duke of Valkirk. Are you insinuating that Valkirk likes to frequent establishments haunted by criminals?”
The sergeant speedily blanched.
Captain Hardy took pains to seem bored. “We’ve never heard of a Lady Aurelie Capet. Needless to say, neither she nor Mr. Hawkes is anywhere on these premises. You blaspheme his name and the name of every soldier who has given their lives for their country by suggesting he’s a criminal. And you’ve frightened our wives and our guests, which we simply will not tolerate.”
“Captain Hardy, sir... Lord Bolt, sir... our apologies, sir... it’s just we have a warrant...” He said this weakly.
Bloody hell.
