Ian pulled on his ankle boots and ran fingers through his mussed hair before turning to the door. He caught the china doorknob and turned it.
The door didn’t budge.
He rattled the knob and pushed at the door, but nothing happened. Heart thumping, Ian crouched and put his eye to the keyhole.
No key on the other side. Someone had locked the door and taken the key away with them.
Blind panic flooded him. Locked in, no escape, trapped, open it, please, please, please, I’ll be good. . . .
He took deep breaths, trying to banish the freezing terror. He thought of warmth, of Beth, of the taste of her mouth, of sliding into her depths, feeling her squeeze.... Beth.
He crouched down and put his mouth to the keyhole.
“Beth?”
Silence. He heard noises from the street but none from the house. He yanked the bell-pull beside the bed, then went back to the door.
“Curry,” he shouted. He pounded on the heavy wood.
“Curry, damn you.”
No answer.
Ian went to the window and flung back the drapes. Mist swirled around the street lamps below. Carriages went back and forth in the square, fog enhancing the sound of hooves and rumbling wheels.
He heard footsteps in the hall and then Curry’s voice at the keyhole. “M’lord? Are you in there?”
“Of course I’m in here. She’s locked the door. Find a key.”
Curry’s voice took on a note of alarm. “Are you all right?”
“Find the blasted key.”
“You’re all right then.” Footsteps moved away.
New fears rushed at Ian, none that had to do with being confined in a small room. Beth had gone somewhere, and she hadn’t wanted him to stop her. Damn her, why couldn’t she listen?
She’d have gone to Fellows, or to interview the men who’d been at the house five years ago, or worse, to the High Holborn house itself to talk to Mrs. Palmer. Son of a bitch. “Curry!” He pounded on the door.
“Keep your shirt on. We’re hunting for a key.”
It took too long. Ian chafed, his temper rising. On the other side of the door, Curry swore and growled. At last Ian heard a key in the lock, heard it turn. He yanked open the door.
Curry, Cameron, and Daniel were grouped outside with the shaky butler, the plump cook, and two wide-eyed maids. “Where is Beth?” he demanded, striding past them. “I don’t like it, my lord.” The cook folded her arms over her ample bosom. “She will meet with the most unsavory people, always has felt too sorry for them. Why can’t they get a proper job? That’s what I want to know.” Her words made no sense, but Ian had the feeling they were important. “What are you saying? What people?” “Mrs. Ackerley’s charity projects. Painted tarts and whores of-Babylon. One came to the kitchen door, if you can imagine, and off goes her ladyship and Miss Katie with her. In a hansom cab.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know, I’m sure.”
Ian swung a glare on her, and the woman deflated. “I’m sorry, your lordship. I truly don’t know.”
“Someone must have seen,” Cameron rumbled. “We’ll ask on the street if someone heard what direction she gave.” “I know where she went,” Ian said grimly. Damnation.
Damnation. “Curry, fetch me a coach. Now.”
He pushed past the crowd and started down the stairs. Curry scrambled behind him, bleating orders in his broad Cockney.
“I’m coming with you,” Cameron said.
“Me, too,” Daniel said, keeping up with them. “Like hell you are,” Cameron told his son. “You’re staying here, and you’ll keep her here if she comes back.”
“But Dad—“
“Do what I say for once, you little hellion.”
Cameron snatched hat and gloves before the doddering butler could get to them. Ian didn’t even bother. Daniel followed them to the door, scowling, but he stayed inside. “How do you know where she is?” Cameron clapped on his hat and strode for the hansom rolling toward them at Curry’s whistle.
Ian climbed inside, Cameron following. “High Holborn,” he said to the cabbie before the vehicle careened off into traffic.
“High Holborn?” Cameron asked in alarm.
“She’s gone to play detective.” Bloody little fool. If anything happened to her . . .
Ian couldn’t finish the thought, couldn’t imagine how he’d feel if he found her dead, a knife in her chest, like Sally and Lily.
Cameron pressed a hand to Ian’s shoulder. “We’ll find her.”
“Why is she so stubborn? And disobedient?”
Cameron barked a laugh. “Because Mackenzies always choose headstrong women. You didn’t really expect her to obey you, did you? No matter what the marriage vows say?”
“I expected to keep her safe.”
“She stood up to Hart. It’s a rare woman who can do that.”
Which showed just how foolish Beth was. Ian fell silent, willing the coach to go faster.
They rolled through thick traffic, the residents of London for some reason out in droves tonight. The cab inched up Park Lane past the house of the blasted Lyndon Mather. Ian hoped briefly that the twelve hundred pounds he’d given him for the bowl would keep the man subdued. Beth didn’t need any more trouble from him.
The coach finally turned east on Oxford Street to traverse its length to High Holborn. Ian hadn’t seen the house that sat innocently on High Holborn near Chancery Lane for five years. But stark memories stabbed at him as he and Cameron entered without knocking. Nothing inside had changed. Ian walked through the same vestibule with dark wood wainscoting, opened the same stained-glass door that led to the inner hall and polished walnut staircase. The maid who admitted them was new and obviously thought Ian and Cameron were expected clients. Ian wanted to push past her and run up the stairs, but Cameron put his hand on Ian’s shoulder and shook his head.