Page 6 of The Duke's Stolen Heart
Chapter 3
Either Miss Lowry had taken leave of her senses, or Havencrest had.
For a woman who scoffed at a ride in a warm carriage in a bit of drizzle, Miss Lowry had a lot of nerve pushing a wheelbarrow out a dock into the Thames, well after midnight. The wharf was no place for a fine lady. In fact, no aristocrat would be caught dead anywhere near the place. Certainly not alone, and definitely not dressed as a man, as the man Havencrest had hired to watch the Evendaw house informed Malcolm. This bit of information had prompted hours of unwelcome images to parade through his imagination as they searched London’s streets for any sign of Miss Lowry. Powerful legs encased in buff breeches, snug around the sweet curves of her derriere…Malcolm’s eyes narrowed as he watched the figure struggle with the heavy load. A gust of wind lifted the brim of her hat to expose the sharp line of her cheek and the soft plump curve of her lips. No Adam’s apple in sight.
The man he had hired to trail Miss Lowry had spotted her leaving the Evendaw household via a window at around eleven at night. After that, it had been pure luck that one of the footmen had suggested they check the wharves. At this time of night, the docks were deserted but for whores and the drunks who bought their services.
“Stay back,” Havencrest commanded as though he were Wellington at Waterloo, and not crouched behind a stack of barrels with two footmen at his back. Five yards away, Antonia maneuvered the wheeled cart between a pair of bobbing dinghies. She groaned as she tipped it up to dump the bundle off the edge of the pier. It looked like a rug tied with string. The roll sagged and stayed stubbornly in the well of her wheelbarrow.
“Miss Lowry,” he said triumphantly. The lady dropped the handles and the cart fell to the rotting wood dock with a loud thud. She didn’t scream, but her limbs twitched with the effort to suppress her reaction.
Good.
He had her now. Satisfaction curled through him.
“Lord Havencrest, I presume.” The river wind snatched her voice away. She was a mermaid. A midnight siren.
“At your service. Might I assist you in disposing of that…” What in the hell was it, anyway? Havencrest squinted through the gloom. A vaguely person-shaped body lay half-in, half-out of the tipped-over wheelbarrow. Miss Lowry’s shoulders were a tense line in her poor-fitted jacket. There was no delectable derriere for his perusal, to Havencrest’s great disappointment. Her great coat’s flaps concealed everything.
“Body,” Miss Lowry supplied. “I bought her in St. Giles earlier tonight. She stinks.”
Havencrest barked a shocked laugh. “Are you a murderer in addition to being a thief?”
“I am not, although I suppose I cannot expect you to believe any explanation I might supply for being caught dumping a corpse into the river at past midnight,” Miss Lowry sighed. “I bought her off a resurrectionist. By his standards, she was freshly dead.” Antonia’s nose wrinkled, and Malcolm didn’t know whether to laugh or shake her, aghast with astonishment.
“Every time I think I have sufficient appreciation for your talents, Miss Lowry, I find I have underestimated you yet again,” he said ruefully, grateful to be far enough back from the body to avoid the smell of decay.
“I am full of surprises, your lordship.” Antonia bowed. She did not remove her hat. Malcolm spied a length of black cloth knotted at the back of her head, presumably to cover her hair. A string held the hat in place. Beside her, the rug-wrapped body plopped onto the wood and unrolled to reveal a portion of pink gown. He recognized it as one of hers.
“I conjecture you’re attempting to fake your own death,” Malcolm said with mild rebuke in his tone. “It is too bad your dress had to suffer in the process.”
“It was my favorite,” Miss Lowry said with a note of wistfulness. “But dresses can be refashioned.”
He had crept closer to her. Icy wind whipped through his warm woolen clothing. Antonia’s teeth chattered as she cast a glance downriver. Malcolm’s breath caught in his chest at the feral determination he saw there. This was a woman who depended upon no one.
“You never saw me,” she declared. Antonia Lowry hoisted one end of the rug and heaved. The woman’s body rolled limply into the water. Horrifyingly, the corpse’s pink dress bubbled up until the body began to float. Havencrest seized an oar from the little boat bobbing in the river and gave it a sharp smack. Antonia startled. “Why are you helping me?”
“I need your services.” Malcolm pushed the body away from the dock until the tide took her.
“What do you want from me?” Miss Lowry asked in a tone as cold as the wind off the sea.
“Not to kill yourself, firstly.”
“That dead woman wasn’t me,” Miss Lowry explained slowly, as though he were a simpleton.
“I am aware of that. You are, after all, standing next to me. Please,” Malcolm gestured back at his waiting footmen. “I cannot let you disappear. I also cannot permit you to be caught interfering with a corpse. There is only one logical way to be rid of the body.”
“Who are you, really?” he asked after several minutes of silence. Havencrest estimated they had another twenty minutes before landing. Every question he’d wanted to ask her for weeks jostled for primacy. This was the question that had won out.
“Miss Antonia Lowry—”
“Bullshit. Give me the truth.” He cut her off. “There will be no games. Tell me who you are, or I hand you over to the magistrate.”
She sat beside him in rigid silence, smelling of decaying flesh. “I was born to a serving woman in Virginia where I lived until the age of nine and my mother moved us to New Jersey—”
“I said, give me the truth. If you don’t, I shall gladly hand you over to Bow Street. Aristocrats can purchase any measure of justice they desire.” Finally, he got through to her. Miss Lowry’s face blanched and her expression turned blank. It disquieted him, for Antonia Lowry—a name that would do for lack of any real one—like all women, was the most fearless con artist he had ever met.
Not all women lie.
