Page 76 of A Dangerous Lord (Regency Spies & Secrets 3)

Stewart shook his head. “You attempted to abduct the daughter of a marquess,” he said. “There are severe repercussions for that. Frankly, I am surprised you are not in irons.”

“I paid the guards what I had on me,” Hester admitted. “That is the only reason I’m not.”

“Why don’t you tell this man what you told me earlier?” Stewart prodded.

Hester nodded. “I was approached by a man who offered to pay me ten pounds to abduct Lady Jane. I staked out Hawthorne House and followed the curricle to Hyde Park. It was easy to abduct her from that dandy she was with.”

“What were you supposed to do with her?” Corbyn asked.

“I was to deliver her to a warehouse in the rookeries,” Hester said. “It was an abandoned, brown brick building on Traeger Street.”

“Did he pay you up front?”

“He did,” Hester replied. “He paid me with two-pound notes, but I later found out they were forged.”

“They were?” Corbyn asked. “How did you discover that?”

“I spilled my drink and the ink washed off, revealing a one-pound note,” Hester revealed. “I did the same to the other bills and discovered the same thing.”

“What did you do with the banknotes?”

Hester shrugged. “I used them to pay off the guards,” he confessed.

“Can you tell me anything about the man who hired you?”

Hester grew serious. “He was tall and had a scar that ran from his right cheek down to his neck,” he shared.

Corbyn stepped closer to the cell. “What did the scar look like?”

“It was an old scar,” Hester revealed, “and it looked gnarled.”

“Can you tell me anything more about the man?”

Hester didn’t speak for a long moment. Finally, he said, “His eyes were cold and bleak. They almost appeared grey in color.”

Corbyn reared back as he found himself unable to formulate any words. What Hester was saying was impossible. There was no way Adam Kerley was still alive. He had seen his dead body in the streets of France.

“What’s wrong?” Stewart asked, eyeing him with concern.

“Hester is describing someone I used to know.” Corbyn placed his hand on the iron bar and asked, “Did he say what his name was?”

Hester shook his head. “No, and I didn’t ask.”

“And are you positive that he had a scar on the right side of his face?”

“I am,” Hester said.

Corbyn dropped his hand and stepped back. He needed some air, and he was tired of breathing in the stench of unwashed bodies. Not waiting for Stewart or the guard, he walked down the hall and exited the main door.

He put his hands on the back of his head and took a deep breath. It had to be a mistake. There was no way that Kerley was alive. If he was, he had left him behind to deal with the enemy alone. This had to be a misunderstanding.

But Kerley not only had a long scar on his face, but his eyes had a grey hue to them. It couldn’t be a coincidence; he was sure of it.

“Are you all right?” Stewart asked as he came to stand next to him.

“No,” he replied, “but I will be.”

Stewart extended him a folded piece of paper. “Hester was supposed to give this to you after he delivered Lady Jane to the man in the rookeries.”

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