Slaves of Obsession - Anne Perry [24]
Casbolt was right to be afraid of Breeland; so was Judith Alberton.
“Yes, of course I’ll come with you,” he answered. “I’ll go and dress, and tell my wife. I’ll be five minutes, or less.”
“Thank you! Thank you very much.”
Monk nodded, then went hastily back to the bedroom.
Hester was sitting up with a shawl around her.
“Who is it?” she asked before he had closed the door.
“Casbolt,” he answered, taking off his dressing gown and putting on his shirt. “Alberton went out shortly after I left and hasn’t come home, and Merrit is missing. It looks as if she might have gone after Breeland. Stupid child!”
“Can I help?”
“No! Thank you.” He fastened his shirt with clumsy fingers, moving too hastily, then reached for his trousers.
“Be careful what you say to her,” Hester warned.
He would have been delighted to put Merrit Alberton over his knee and spank her until she was obliged to eat off the mantelpiece for a week. It must have shown in his face, because Hester stood up quickly and came to him.
“William, she is young and full of ideals. The harder you argue with her, the more stubborn she will be. Fight with her, and she’ll do the last thing she really wants to rather than be seen to give in. Plead for her help, her understanding, earn her mercy, and she’ll be reasonable.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I was sixteen once,” she said a trifle tartly.
He grinned. “And in love?”
“It is a natural state of affairs.”
“Was he a gun buyer for a foreign army?” He put his jacket on. There was no time to shave.
“No, actually he was a vicar,” she replied.
“A vicar? You … in love with a vicar?”
“I was sixteen!” There was warm color in her cheeks.
He smiled and kissed her quickly, feeling her respond after only an instant’s hesitation.
“Be careful,” she whispered. “Breeland may be …”
“I know.” And before she could add anything further he went out and back to where Casbolt was standing near the door impatiently.
Casbolt’s carriage was waiting outside in the street, and he climbed in ahead of Monk, shouting at the driver sitting huddled on the box. The summer dawn was hardly cold, but too chilly to wait in, and the man had been woken barely halfway through his sleep.
The carriage lurched forward and reached a good speed within moments. It was altogether fourteen minutes since Casbolt had interrupted Monk’s dream.
“Where are we going?” Monk asked as they rolled over the cobbles and were flung together by the swerve around a corner.
“Breeland’s rooms,” Casbolt answered breathlessly. “I nearly went straight there without you, but for the cost of a street or so out of my way, I could have you with me. I don’t know what we should find there. It may need more than one of us, and I formed the opinion you are a good man to have beside me in a scrap—if it should come to that. God knows what is in Merrit’s mind. She must have lost all sense of … everything. She hardly knows the man! He …” He gasped as they were bumped again and the carriage swerved the other way, this time throwing him half on top of Monk.
“He could be anything!” he went on. “The man’s a fanatic, prepared to sacrifice everything and everybody to his damned cause! He’s madder than any of our own military men, and God help us, they are insane enough.” His voice was rising with a wild note in it. “Look at some of their antics in the Crimea. Any price to be a hero—glory of victory, blood and bodies all over the place, and for what? Fame, an idea … medals and a footnote in history.”
They were clattering through a leafy square, the trees making a temporary darkness.
“Damn Breeland and his idiotic ideals!” he said in an explosion of fury. “He has no business preaching to a sixteen-year-old girl who thinks everyone else is as noble and as