The Winshire mansion was closer to Westminster than Haverford House, and away from the river. At first, Aldridge was able to gallop, but he took a shortcut through Hyde Park. On the other side, he met the clutter of morning traffic, and had to drop his pair to a walk. It seemed to take forever, though the light vehicle was able to weave around larger drays and carriages, and was seldom stopped entirely.
He pulled up in front of the main entrance and called to a groom to hold the horses even as he leapt down to take the steps two at a time and thunder a knock on the door.
“Is Lady Charlotte home?” he demanded of the man who opened the door.
“Lady Charlotte is not receiving, my lord,” said the butler.
“Yes, fine. I do not need to see her; just to know if she is at home.”
“Charlotte is not well, and is still in her bedchamber, Aldridge,” said the Duke of Winshire from the stairs that descended into the entry. Bentham and Lord Andrew followed behind him. “Is there a problem?”
Aldridge felt weak at the release of tension. He was in time. “If a message arrives for her from a sewing workshop in Clerkenwell, tell her not to go. I have been warned that it is a trap.”
“Sarah!” Lord Bentham clutched the duke’s arm. “Sarah ran the errand for her.”
The duke didn’t hesitate. “Drew, run upstairs and ask your cousin for the address in Clerkenwell. Aldridge, tell us what you know. Who plans to trap her, and why?”
Aldridge took his first deep breath in half an hour as Bentham descended the stairs ahead of the duke, his face blanched of all colour, his eyes wide with shock and burning with anger. “Quick, man. We have to go after her.” He forked his fingers through his hair and grimaced. “She left perhaps forty-five minutes ago, Uncle James. We may already be too late.”
His Grace put a hand over the distressed viscount’s. “Whoever it is must get through Yahzak and John, and your wife is not helpless, Nate. She has a knife and a pistol, and is trained to use them.”
His wife? It was true, then, what Elfingham told me, so long ago. And if that, then probably the other. Aldridge put the thought from his mind to focus on the immediate. “If Lady Charlotte has the address, we will be close behind them,” Aldridge promised. “The men sent to take her at the workshop work for a brothel owner who is, according to my informant, being rewarded for the abduction by someone who hopes to marry Lady Charlotte. They will have to transport her from the workshop to somewhere else. We have time to catch up.”
The duke must have given a signal, for one of his foreign retainers hurried out from behind the stairs. “Yousef, I want horses ready. Assign four men to guard the house with the footmen. High alert. No one comes in or out until I return. Everyone else will come with me.”
“I have my phaeton outside,” Aldridge said. “I’ll go on ahead, and you can catch up.”
“I am coming with you,” Bentham stated. And he had a right. If Charlotte had fallen into their hands, as they intended, Aldridge would not leave the rescue to anyone else.
Lord Andrew came clattering back downstairs, buckling on a sword as he came. Behind him, Charlotte appeared at the balustrade wearing a housecoat, her hair in a plait over her shoulder, her face pale and drawn. “Little Potter’s Alley, off Mutton Lane, which leads off the northwest corner of Clerkenwell Green,” Lord Andrew reported.
