No more against the law than prostitution…
He let Alexandra’s words fade from his mind. He’d deal with his own hypocrisy later. Besides, she had gone behind his back to use his business for the publication of the underground paper. He could not forgive her for that.
He erased Alexandra from his mind. Sophie had to be his main concern. He and a servant would go to the address now, before darkness fell, to see what lay ahead.
He summoned Woods and asked him to arrange for a coach and someone to accompany him. He then went to his bedchamber and changed clothing, something nondescript. He pulled his blond hair back in a queue so it would be less noticeable.
He stole down the back stairway to avoid Alexandra and made his way to the coach. One of his most trusted servants, James Lafleur, was already seated inside. Evan nodded to him.
“Thirty-two Chilton Place, please,” Evan said to the coachman.
Within an hour, they arrived in a poverty-stricken area of London. The coachman stopped, and Evan and James alighted.
“Gardyloo!” a woman shouted from several stories above.
James pushed Evan out of the way just in time. A splash of urine hit the ground.
Was this how Alexandra had grown up? Streets lined with garbage? Air scented with waste? Of course not. Longarry may have been a pauper, but he did at least have an estate. Or had they been so poorly off that they had lived in a similar area in Scotland? Longarry’s coffers had been dry for some time. He was no doubt attracted to Iris’s dowry.
Evan’s heart broke at the thought of Alexandra living like this.
Evan led James to 32 Chilton Place. It appeared abandoned. The steps were dirty and covered in refuse. A couple of stray dogs sniffed around. The poor animals were bony and starving, and Evan wished he had some scraps from the kitchen to feed them. Instead, he shooed them away and approached the door. He knocked. Nothing, of course. He hadn’t expected anyone to be there. They would not arrive until midnight or a little before.
He tried the door, but it was locked. He turned to James. “Let’s go around back and see what we find. There’s probably another entrance.”
James nodded, but Evan put up a hand to stop him.
“I’m going to have the coachman move to a safer area. I’ll tell him to be back in a half hour.”
After Evan took care of the coach, he and James trudged through to the back alley. Sure enough, there was a back entrance, but it was also locked. Evan inhaled. The smell was thick—human and animal waste, filth.
“Go back around front,” he said to James. “Check the windows. See if any are loose or open. Maybe check the adjacent buildings.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Evan continued to search the grounds. One window in the back was broken, but the glass was jagged, and he didn’t dare try to break it further and enter. Perhaps he would return later with some leather gloves to protect his hands. It hadn’t occurred to him to bring a weapon during the daylight, though in this neighborhood, it would not have been a bad idea.
He walked down the alley a bit, looking around. Debris littered the small path. More stray dogs and alley cats nosed around
. Muffled voices yelled from within the adjacent dwellings. Then a woman shrieked.
Why would whoever took Sophie bring her here? It was not safe. If only he could figure out where she was and get to her before her captors brought her here. But that would be impossible. All he had was the parchment her captors had sent.
This was all Alexandra’s doing. Somehow she had found out about his business and corrupted one of his employees. He didn’t doubt that she could have persuaded one of them to do the deed. The woman was a siren. She could most likely persuade anyone to do anything.
Even as his anger bubbled, his heart still yearned for her.
He still loved her.
How could he have misjudged her? Yes, her childhood had been miserable. Could he excuse her behavior on those grounds? No, Alexandra was a grown woman. The time had come to leave her childhood behind and exist as a good person should.
Evan shook his head. He had wanted so much to fall in love with Lady Rose Jameson. She had personified what he thought he always wanted in a woman—adherence to convention, social grace, a good family line, intelligence, and beauty.
The heart wanted what it wanted.
He would have to get over it. While the erotica writing didn’t bother him, the fact that she had pirated his printing house did. Damn, he should have stayed in Bath and taken care of the problem when he found out about it, rather than following Alexandra to London. He knew damned well that the publication of obscene material was against the law.
“Your purse, mate.”